


She

by Kim J (notluvulongtime)



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, Episode: s05e06 Timeless, F/M, Paternal!Chakotay, episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:17:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notluvulongtime/pseuds/Kim%20J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With help from the most unlikely of places, Chakotay survives the loss of Voyager and his treasured Kathryn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Voyager

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this is just me testing out AO3, this time with images. It's not a new fic and exists elsewhere; just trying out a new space.
> 
> This is a birthday present for my beta and friend, elem.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns all things Trek and Elvis Costello covered “She” for Notting Hill’s soundtrack; the lyrics are by Herbert Kretzmer.

 

*

 

_She may be the face I can't forget_  
The trace of pleasure or regret  
May be my treasure or the price I have to pay  
She may be the song that summer sings  
May be the chill that autumn brings  
May be a hundred different things  
Within the measure of a day

 

*

 

He didn’t belong here. 

 

He wanted to be with her.

 

Chakotay stared at the speech on the data PADD in his lap.  As the words swam in a blur behind his tear-filled eyes, he fought the urge to smash it to the ground. 

 

As the Vulcan children’s choir behind him broke forth with their beautiful voices, he refused to appreciate their perfect pitch or the poignancy of the music.  He didn’t want to be there.  He didn’t want to make a commemorative speech honoring Voyager and its crew.  A Pulitzer Prize-winning author had written the words in his hands; too steeped in grief, Chakotay’s mind had become a slate covered in her name, her words, and her face.  Although the speech was well-constructed and hit all the right emotional highs and lows, it couldn’t possible encapsulate how much his heart ached, how much his soul burned with regret and how much his spirit had been crushed.

 

Harry sat on the other side of the stage with Admiral McIntyre, his demeanor subdued and equally guilt-ridden.  But Chakotay couldn’t blame the young, eager-to-please ensign.

 

After everything he’d been through with Kathryn, he knew better.  He should have questioned her more.  He should have prevented her from going through with the quantum leap.  They had weathered their differences before; it was not beyond him to speak his mind.

 

No.  In the end, his love for her doomed them all.

 

*    *

 

_"We've waited long enough. I know it's a risk - probably our biggest one yet - but I'm willing to take it."_

_The vegetable biryani was getting cold in the pan before them, but Chakotay wasn’t hungry anymore._

_Kathryn was sitting in his lap and he was in heaven for the first time in a long while._

_The way she caressed his jaw line, absently rubbing the ten o’clock shadow that inevitably formed after doing a double shift, was hypnotic and soothing.  Something about the day’s accomplishments had emboldened her towards him.  This was not just their usual week’s repast together.  It may very well be the last dinner they’d have to go over ship’s business.  If all went well, they could be home before the next day was done._

_No, this moment was all about a future he had thought would never arrive, a future that seemed miniscule in the all-encompassing mission to get home, but a future he’d at times wanted more than anything else.  To Chakotay, Kathryn was home.   And now here she sat in front of him, on him, the entire universe in his lap._

_Her lips hovered just millimeters from his.  Their eyes met and Chakotay was sure he’d never seen hers quite this dark before.  Kathryn placed a palm on the table and gently rose.  She traced the line of his shoulders and began a slow walk to the bathroom._

_“I thought I’d take a bath.”_

_She turned then and smiled, her lips quivering with uncertainty.  Chakotay realized that for the first time, she hadn’t really planned this at all.  Kathryn Janeway was following her heart before her mind._

_“Are you with me?”_

_Chakotay got up, pushed his chair in, and covered the remaining space between them.  He lifted his hand so that the back of his index finger brushed up against her chin.  He leaned down, and as he spoke, their lips touched every so slightly._

_“Always.”_

 

*    *    *

 

“Tell me about the holodeck simulations you and Harry were running on the Enterprise.”

 

Deanna Troi had requested this assignment above anything else.  Chakotay had spent the last three years plumbing the outermost sectors of the Alpha Quadrant in search of Voyager with barely a shore leave taken.  It was hard enough to get him to agree to counseling.  So far, he’d refused Starfleet’s help in this regard.  It took her three weeks and continuous badgering to get him to agree to this one, and only, time.

 

“We occupied two neighboring holodecks.  One was a facsimile of the Delta Flyer, complete with the last data we acquired from Voyager when they were knocked out of the slipstream.  The other was a replica of the bridge…”

 

“And you stayed on the bridge while Harry ‘piloted’ the Delta Flyer?”

 

“Correct.”

 

“And how often did you run these simulations?”

 

Chakotay’s eyes glazed over.  It had been awhile since he’d had a good night’s sleep.

 

“More than a dozen, surely – over two dozen times.”

 

“A week?”

 

“A day.”

 

“And what precipitated this…breakdown?”

 

Chakotay tugged at the goatee he’d been growing since emerging from the clinic on Aurora Prime.

 

“Harry decided that my piloting wasn’t good enough.  We needed a holographic Paris, programmed with his skills, his insight, his…charisma…”

 

The former Commander’s voice caught at the memory of his old foe.

 

“So we decided to go all the way and programmed every crewmember back on the bridge…”

 

His voice began to quake and he cleared his throat.  She gazed at him with empathy that went far beyond her capacity as a Betazoid.

 

“Go on.”

 

“For the first time in three years, I saw her again – reacting the very same way I’d expect her to.  With the same courage, the same hope.  I knew that if Harry and I continued with these experiments, I’d have to witness her die again and again and again….”

 

The memory was too much to take.  Chakotay stared at the exit behind Deanna, willing her to let him leave.

 

“The last thing I remembered was Dr. Crusher hovering over me in sickbay, restraints holding my arms and legs to the biobed and finding out that we were on a direct course for the nearest rehab colony. 

 

Do you have enough for the report?  Because I’d like to leave now.”

 

*    *    *    *

 

 “She’s r-r-r-ready.”

 

Reginald Barclay emerged from the Zimmerman lab with a shy smile on his face.  His latest client was someone he admired greatly – without the man knowing, of course.  The Chakotay before him, however, was far leaner than the holographic best friend dressed in Maquis leathers he had secretly created years ago.  The full beard was something he hadn’t expected either.

 

“Thank you, Reg.  How’s Haley?”

 

“She misses Lewis.  I think that if he’d known how much, he wouldn’t have s-s-stipulated in his will for her to stay on indefinitely.”

 

Chakotay immediately got the hint.

 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

“Well, then without further ado, I’ll like to introduce you to…Kathryn Janeway!”

 

Her holographic projection came around the corner as graceful as he remembered her being, dressed in a sea foam green tunic and beige linen pants.

 

“Chakotay, I’ve missed you.”

 

Even the half-smirk was correct.  He wanted to both sigh in relief and scream in horror.  It was how he expected it to be.  It was nothing like he expected it to be.  He was rooted to the spot, unsure of what to do next.  Chakotay needn’t have bothered; this Kathryn was welcoming, familiar.  It was as though she’d known him for all of five years and no time had passed.

 

Ready to fall apart at a moment’s notice, Reg studied Chakotay’s every facial movement and cleared his throat.

 

“Of c-c-c-course, I could only access files from her time on Earth and those sent through the d-d-d-d-d-data stream –“

 

“She’s perfect, Reg.  You’ve done a wonderful job.  I could never thank you enough.”

 

It was all wrong, but being the gentleman that he was, Chakotay could never deny a gift done with such care and compassion.  Barclay had been following his and Harry’s progress like a concerned colleague; Reg only wanted to use his skills to make the Commander feel more at home.  It was the least Starfleet could do now that he was considered a liability on any deep space missions.

 

It was too much like the real thing, but nothing like her at the same time.  Reg had kept her hair long.  The coloring was perfect, down to the shade of indigo her eyes had been.  The intonation of her voice, her inflections, her Mid-Western accent – something he’d never noticed before, but which was now so apparent after such a long absence.  Barclay was clearly a master at physical duplication.

 

Chakotay was sure that if he downloaded the program into the PADD and took her home, set up the projectors and uploaded her into the system, she’d put him at ease for perhaps an hour, perhaps a day.  Just to look at, to remember all the good times they had shared.

 

But in reality, there could be no genuine interaction.  Their relationship started and ended on Voyager and without the ship’s logs from which to cull a three-dimensional personality, Reg could only imagine what the Commander wanted.  Eventually it would only hurt him more to be reminded of what could no longer be.

 

Chakotay was a desperate man.  He yearned for her touch, her voice, the way she looked at him.  For years, he’d blamed himself for her death; their first and only night together had clouded his judgment.  If he hadn’t let himself love her, maybe she’d still be alive.  Perhaps this was his punishment.

 

From that moment forward, Chakotay pushed himself to the numb depths beneath the pain and anguish.  He buried himself alive in the hologram’s unreality and accepted his fate in the siren-like call of her voice every morning and every evening. 

 

It was never enough, but it was all he deserved.

 

*    *    *    *

 

_Her skin was pink and speckled with freckles._

_“I hate them.”_

_“I love them.”_

_Chakotay let her lean into him in the hot bath as though she was the Queen of Bubbles and he was her throne._

_“I have a confession to make.”_

_“Mmm?”_

_“I’ve always wanted to wash your hair.”_

_“Since when?”_

_“Since….” Chakotay couldn’t remember when, “…always.”_

_“Well, then what are you waiting for, you big lug?  I expect a scalp massage.  Oh, and make sure you use that mint rinse. It tingles.”_

_An eyebrow shot up._

_“Oh, I’ll make you ‘tingle.’”_

_Her throaty laugh bounced off the walls, but then stopped abruptly as she felt his erection poke up against her back._

_“I thought hot water was enervating to the male libido.”_

_Her presence in this fashion was too much.  Normally their banter was something he relished, but this time, his mind drew a blank.  Chakotay gently tilted her chin upwards and kissed her deeply._

_His hand moved down her belly to the thatch of hair between her thighs. She sighed into his open mouth._

_“Too hot, my love?  Should I add a little cold water?”_

_She shook her head quickly._

_“Forget washing my hair.  Enough foreplay.  Let’s go to bed.”_

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

He was famous for something.  She just didn’t know what for.

 

It was her second time with the same client.  He was handsome, a little weather-beaten, skinnier than her usual – but very attractive. 

 

Especially with that intricate tribal tattoo on his forehead. 

 

When she arrived the first time, he’d made her wear a retro Starfleet uniform and an auburn wig.  She was used to the kinky role play of the men who paid to be with her and have sex with her, but this was definitely something new.  And this was a man who could have any woman he wanted; he seemed the type to prefer a classy dame.

 

Both times, he’d cooked them a vegetarian meal.  Something with an Indian name.  But then, they never touched it.  He drew a bath filled sky-high with bubbles and gently undressed her and helped her get in.  He massaged her shoulders and she almost fell asleep until he told her how much he loved the spots on her back, the speckles she’d hated since she was born.

 

And now, he was fast asleep and there was someone beating on the door.

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

“Chakotay!  It’s Phoebe!  Open up now or I will melt this lock with my phaser, so help me God!”

 

It took her months to find him on Bajor.  He had basically disappeared into oblivion after being treated for holo-addiction the previous year.  Phoebe Janeway didn’t know the specifics; all she knew was that Chakotay was one of two last links to Kathryn in her life and she’d be damned if he died too.

 

Although her patience had worn thin, the door remained solid.  Phoebe stood back and fired.  One shove and the panel collapsed to the side.

 

His quarters in the red-light district were sparsely furnished.  Nevertheless, the room was in enormous disarray.  Clothing was strewn about.  Half-eaten and full dishes of food were left to rot in the recycler.  A plant lay on the windowsill, long dried-up and dead.

 

A bed had been dragged to the middle of the studio apartment.  This was where he lay, still knocked out cold despite the noise, a shivering Bajoran female huddled to one side - naked except for a blanket covering her extremities.

 

Phoebe’s eyes focused on various items that told a story.

 

A red Starfleet uniform.

 

“Oh God.”

 

A wig in a tell-tale shade of auburn.

 

“Oh, Chakotay.”

 

The damned hooker.  Her height, her coloring.

 

Phoebe pulled a wad of litas from her knapsack and threw them at the woman’s feet.

 

“Here.  Now scram.”

 

Her make-up a smeary mess, the whore motioned nervously to the bathroom.

 

“NO!  Just get out!  NOW!”

 

Phoebe’s presence was like an army of Janeways; it didn’t take another glance to know that she was finally alone with Chakotay’s unconscious form.

 

She slapped him lightly on the cheek and pried his eyelids open.  His pupils were rolled to the back of his head.  She then spied the various hyposprays on the nightstand.  Phoebe took a look at the devices and checked the residue.

 

“You sad, stupid man.  Janeway to Kim.”

 

*I’m here*

 

She pinned her combadge to Chakotay’s pants.

 

“Lock onto my biosigns and beam us both to the shuttle.”

 

*Understood*

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

He woke with the usual Technicolor blur before him, but for the first time, there was no stabbing pain to the gut and no sledgehammer to the skull.

 

She was beautiful, all of four feet tall and strawberry blond hair, spiral curls tumbling down past her shoulders.  In her arms was a milky blue vase with a single pink rose sticking out of it.  She held a crinkled piece of paper with a rainbow splayed across the front.   Her cerulean eyes met his and she quickly relinquished her treasures to the side table and scurried off.

 

Chakotay got his bearings, steadied the axis on which his planet tilted and propped himself up on one elbow.  The drawing on the piece of paper was the usual idyllic color display book ended by grey clouds and highlighted by a yellow, smiling sun.  He turned the page and read her childish scrawl:

 

_To Uncle ChakOtaY.   LuV, HannaH_

He smiled for the first time in what felt like a millennia.  When the tears burst forth through a dam of numbness, he panicked.  The narcotic had kept his emotions in check for as long as his old body could remember.  He wasn’t sure if he was ready to feel anything again.

 

Chakotay was dressed in the same clothing he had been wearing when he left Bajor.  The loose grey pants were baggier than usual.  He didn’t know that he’d suffered a week of withdrawal in Phoebe’s care; all he could tell was that he was sleeping in a child’s bed, a crude model of the Orion system hanging above his head like a blessing.

 

He got up, rubbing the itch behind his neck, between his ribs.  His beard had grown in, with black, white and grey patches that resembled that of a wild animal more than that of a humanoid.  Nevertheless, there was a new clarity of mind that hadn’t existed for some time. 

 

He studied the assorted books on the wall.  The person that normally resided here loved Dante, Chekhov and Fitzgerald.  She tried to hide her femininity but it was apparent by the cartoon characters she favored.  She loved science and philosophy, Einstein and Rand.

 

His eyes drifted to a faded holoimage of a young girl who looked exactly like the vision that appeared to him when he woke.  She was holding a caught fish up to the imager, proud and enthusiastic, dwarfed by the lifejacket she wore and the floppy yellow hat on her head.  Strawberry blond curls peeked out from beneath her head gear.

 

“Hannah.”  Chakotay’s voice was rough from a week of silence.

 

“No.”

 

He turned and recognized Phoebe in the doorway, a mug of steaming tea in her welcoming hands.

 

“That’s Katie.  This is her room.”

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

A wind had picked up on the open field and Hannah was running her kite just meters above her head.  Chakotay and Phoebe sat on the porch swing, their rocking back and forth as hypnotic as a metronome.

 

“You have to stop worshipping her.”

 

It was the bluntest thing she could say to knife the silence and he frowned.  Phoebe noticed his discomfort, but continued anyway.

 

“She’s got her faults, just like everyone else.”

 

“She’d _dead,_ Phoebe.”

 

He’d never said it aloud before.  It was progress.

 

“But you’re not, Chakotay.  So start living.  She’d want that.”

 

After what she’d seen on Bajor, Phoebe knew what had been on his mind all this time.

 

“Loving her was not your fault.”

 

“One hundred and forty five crewmen are dead because-“

 

“Because she was impatient and impetuous.  It’s not a surprise.  And it’s been five years.  They’ve closed the search and every day, I wonder why.  But I have no ties to Starfleet.  You and Harry are the only people I can trust.  Harry subsists on data analysis and theorems to survive, but you – you are killing your mind and your body.  I need you well, Chakotay.”

 

“What for?”

 

“I need you to build up your connections and your clearances again.  Harry thinks he can solve the phase variance –“

 

“We’ve done all that, Phoebe-“

 

She took his hand.

 

“There’s a lot of the puzzle missing, but Katie was the scientist – not me.  You’re the tactician, not me.  Harry’s the engineer, not me.  Together we can at least close the chapter on Voyager-”

 

“Voyager is more than a chapter.  It was my entire world.  You have Hannah; she’s your world.  You have a reason for being, Phoebe.  Give me one.”

 

“All right.”

 

She turned to him, bringing her legs up to sit cross-legged on the swing.

 

“Twelve years ago, I found out that I couldn’t have children.  A rare disease I contracted on Dega Prime deformed my ovaries and rendered them useless.  Before Katie left, she harvested a few of her eggs, saying that if I ever wanted to conceive, I could use them with her blessing.  Seven years ago – and after Mark moved on and married someone else – I felt the time was right.

 

The male donor is anonymous and uninvolved, and my mother died last year.  I’m the only family Hannah has left.  She is my daughter, but she has two mothers.  Kathryn runs through her veins.  That’s your reason for being, Chakotay.”

 

Shocked by what her words meant to him, he gazed across the expanse of land.

 

“Mama!!”

 

Phoebe bolted from her seat and Chakotay ran with her to the yard.  She wasn’t in the field. 

 

Her voice came from the back of the house.

 

High up in Kathryn’s tree – the one she often spoke fondly of – was Hannah, softly sobbing.  Just a meter or so off lay the kite, tangled in the tree’s uppermost branches.

 

She was holding onto a thick branch with both hands, hanging precariously.  It was a fall that promised a compound fracture. 

 

At least.

 

He positioned himself below the little girl.  There was no time to find something soft for her to land on.  Her hands were slipping.

 

“Hannah!  Let go!  I’ll catch you!  I promise!”

 

With a scream, she fell.

 

Chakotay absorbed the impact and hit the ground flat on his back with the accelerated weight.

 

“Oh, my baby!” Phoebe checked for broken bones, bruises and cuts.  Miraculously, she found none.

 

Chakotay couldn’t get up.

 

There were tears in Phoebe’s eyes as Hannah embraced her mother.  A fierce protectiveness in her expression reminded him of Kathryn.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Under that beard, a half-smile/half-grimace had formed.

 

“It’s the least I could do.  But I think you might need an osteo-regenerator for me.”

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

He was in bed again, but at the local medicenter this time.  Chakotay usually abhorred clinics and hospitals; it reminded him too much of the rapid detoxes, the counseling sessions, the experimental therapies.  For the first time in a long while, he was being treated for a physical ailment instead of a mental one and it put his heart at ease. 

 

_Spirits, it’s good to be useful again._

 

It was way past her bedtime, but Hannah wouldn’t leave his side.  She didn’t speak very much; something about this big bear of an uncle made her shy, but it didn’t stop her from insisting she stay. 

 

Phoebe had requested that a cot be wheeled in next to Chakotay’s biobed so that Hannah could sleep the remainder of the night next to her newfound hero.  It wasn’t a situation she had wished for by any means, but Phoebe didn’t question the hand of fate – especially over the past decade.  She just savored what good fortune could be had, however mixed it was. 

 

Observing them from the doorway, Phoebe knew Chakotay and Hannah had bonded for life.

 

And that was good.

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

“You’re up early.”

 

Phoebe shaded her eyes with one hand while wielding a spatula in the other.

 

It was Chakotay’s first day back on the farm and he was hauling pieces of lumber he’d found in the barn up to a series of solid branches.

 

“Mind telling me what you’re doing in Katie’s tree?”

 

He spit the nails into his hand and straddled the trunk.

 

“I thought I’d make Hannah a tree house.  In case she decides to go climbing again.”

 

“She’ll love that.  I’m making breakfast – cheesy mushroom omelets.  You interested in taking a break?”

 

“Love to.”

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

It was the perfect day.

 

Hannah had been solicitous with her uncle at breakfast until Phoebe mentioned that he was building her a tree house.  In one sudden movement, she was out of her chair and up in Chakotay’s arms in a bone-crushing hug.  He breathed in her shampoo – a combination of peaches and strawberries that was comforting and more real to his senses than anything he had encountered since he’d been home.

 

He spent most of the morning teaching her safety precautions in woodworking – giving her gloves to protect her soft hands from splinters and goggles to cover her eyes as they used the buzz saw in the shed.  Hannah was a quick study.  In fifteen minutes, she’d managed to hammer a nail flush into a board in just two strokes.  She was attentive, interested and conscientious.  They hardly spoke to one another, but the physical communication was eerily natural.  It was as though their spirits had touched in a different lifetime.

 

By the twilight hour, a level platform had been built surrounding the trunk and a ladder of steps led from the base to the top.  After a hearty vegetarian stew dinner, the inseparable new buddies watched the sun dip down below the horizon and lay back on the wood to watch the stars make their grand appearance in the night sky.

 

“Where’s Auntie Katie’s ship?”

 

It was the question of a lifetime, but Chakotay knew she was asking about its placement amongst the stars.

 

“I don’t know, Hannah, but I wish I did.”

 

“Mommy says you loved Auntie.”

 

“I did.  Very much so.  I still do.”  His voice caught, so he changed the subject, “So where do you want the windows in this house of yours-“

 

Hannah sat up.

 

“I don’t want it to be a house.  Up here, it feels like I’m flying.  Can we make it a ship?  Just like Auntie Katie’s?”

 

“ _Hannah._ ”

 

Phoebe looked up from below, a tray of hot chocolates in her hands.

 

“You don’t criticize your gifts.  You know better than that –“

 

Chakotay smiled at his ‘niece.’

 

“No, it’s okay.  I’ll remember what it looks like.  It won’t take long.”

 

Phoebe exhaled.  He was healing.  She placed the tray on the makeshift dumb waiter Chakotay had fashioned and pulled the rope attached to it so that the steaming mugs rose to their level.

 

“Thank you, mommy.”

 

“You’re welcome, love.  Don’t keep your uncle past his bedtime.”

 

“I won’t.”

 

After Phoebe had gone back into the house, Hannah studied him with concern.

 

“You don’t look like your holoimages.”

 

“What do my holoimages look like?”

 

“They look happy.  Right now, I can’t tell if you’re smiling or not.  I don’t know if you like me and mommy.  Or if you want to stay with us….”

 

Chakotay realized Hannah was eyeing his beard.  He hadn’t trimmed it in two years.  Tugging on it, he realized how much pain still covered the end of each strand.

 

“Let’s cut it off.  You’ll help me?”

 

She nodded and her crooked smile lit the universe.  He was overwhelmed by a strong sense of déjà vu.  She was so like her mother.

 

After helping her down, Chakotay took Hannah by the hand and strode back into the house.  Phoebe was placing the dishes in the recycler.

 

“Getting cold so soon?”

 

He was fingering the tangles of his beard.

 

“Phoebe, do you have a shaver?”

 

“Nothing quick and easy.  Mom didn’t keep anything male around the house after Dad died, but I think I saw a straight razor in one of the kitchen drawers-“

 

She pulled out various rows and found the item.

 

“It needs sharpening.  I know it’s primitive-“

 

“It’s perfect.”

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

He sat before a basin of hot water, the steam rising and fogging up the bathroom mirror.  Hannah sat on the toilet lid, holding the can of shaving cream at the ready.  The newly-sharpened blade gleamed.  A heavy dusting of salt and pepper hairs coated the tile floor.  Having trimmed as much as he could with a scissors, Chakotay removed the hot towel from his face and sighed at his reflection.

 

It was time to embark on a new chapter in his life.  Voyager was still his world, but he had since learned that there was room for Hannah and Phoebe.

 

She smiled and shot a large amount of the cream into his open palm.  He smeared it over his cheeks, chin, neck and upper lip like a healing balm and with each stroke of the razor, Chakotay felt reborn.

 

When it was done, he turned to Hannah and a slow, powerful grin spread across his face.  The holoimages she’d seen held proud expressions of nobility and calm.  The little girl had never seen the full warmth of his smile, or the deep indentations in his cheeks and chin.

 

Hannah stood on the seat and took Chakotay’s face in her hands, letting her small thumbs sink into his dimples.  Tears coated her fingertips.

 

“You’re smiling!”

 


	2. Hannah

*

 

 _She may be the beauty or the beast_  
May be the famine or the feast  
May turn each day into a heaven or a hell  
She may be the mirror of my dreams  
The smile reflected in a stream  
She may not be what she may seem  
Inside her shell

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

“It’s not fair!”

 

Professor Chakotay had just gotten through the door of his apartment in San Francisco – feeling like a beaten dog after teaching three consecutive paleontology classes at U.C. Berkeley – when he was greeted by both a tight-lipped Phoebe and a highly emotional Hannah.

 

There were times when he wished transporters had never been invented.  This was something that could’ve been handled over the view screen, but lately his ten year-old niece had needed one-on-one intervention.  From the look on Phoebe’s face, it appeared she was at the end of her rope.

 

Chakotay set down his briefcase and began peeling off his trench coat.  The years had packed on a few pounds – something he’d needed after his addictions had whittled away the flesh on his body – but he was still attractive to the opposite sex.  That is, if he’d bothered to notice.

 

With a weary sigh, he sunk into the couch, his thumb and ring finger massaging his temples.

 

“Is this about Starfleet Camp?”

 

“YES!”

 

“Chakotay,” Phoebe intoned behind clenched teeth, which told him this wasn’t good, “I tried to remind her about the wilderness trip to Costa Rica you planned but –“

 

“Professor Partridge told me that _this_ year, campers would get to test the new Z-5 class shuttle!  Only this year!!  I _have_ to go!  I know I’ll be the youngest one there but he says I’m above and beyond the intelligence of the other kids enrolled!  And he said it could be a way for me to get early acceptance into the Academy-“

 

Red klaxons went off in Chakotay’s brain.  Ty Partridge had been a thorn in his side from the moment he let Hannah attend the man’s introductory quantum mechanics class. 

 

She had been all of nine years old when Chakotay offered to babysit Hannah while Phoebe showed her latest work in New York.  At the last minute, he was called into a departmental meeting and had to leave her with Ty.  How could he have known that she would absorb every bit of knowledge that a seventeen year-old could barely grasp?

 

“When does camp start?”

 

“ _Chakotay_!”

 

“July first!”

 

Mother and daughter eyed one another like gunslingers from the Old West. 

 

Chakotay looked heavenward, wishing he could be beamed to Jupiter station.  Reg may have been a bit odd, but at least his companions didn’t argue.

 

“We’ll just move up the wilderness trip to June.  Problem solved.”

 

“YAY!!”                                                                    

 

“You’re letting her go??”

 

His manly abode suddenly felt far too female.

 

“Hannah, is it your turn to stay with me this weekend?”

 

She nodded, triumphant, “My stuff is in my room.”

 

“Good. Unpack.  I need to talk to your mother.”

 

Hannah made a great show of giving her uncle a big smooch on the cheek and traipsed off, her imperious nose in the air.

 

As Chakotay moved to the kitchen to replicate some tea, a seething Phoebe followed him on his heels.

 

“That Z-5 hasn’t even passed muster!  Do you really want your niece to be one of their little tribbles?  This is no time to get wrapped around her little finger, ‘ _Uncle Chak_.’”

 

Phoebe knew he hated the abbreviation; it sounded too much like ‘Chuck.’  So far, the only person who’d been allowed to call him that had been Hannah, of course.

 

“You don’t have to worry about the shuttle.  She doesn’t meet the height requirement to begin with.  Believe me, she’ll be stuck with the simulation for most of the summer –“

 

“I thought we had an agreement; to encourage her artistic temperament and discourage her from anything Starfleet.”

 

He handed her a mug and took a much-needed sip from his own cup before making a ruling.

 

“She’s Kathryn’s daughter too, Pheeb.  We’ve done all we can.  I’ve tried; she doesn’t have the patience for painting the way we both do.  She has no interest in the ‘old rocks’ her uncle likes to study, or the various civilizations I lecture about.  I’m old; you’re old.  Ty’s theories are new…”

 

She noticed a newfound sadness to his demeanor and softened her voice.

 

“I don’t like Ty.”

 

“Ty means well.  He’s just a ‘Fleeter – and a big Kathryn Janeway enthusiast.  You should be flattered.”

 

Phoebe snorted.

 

“Never.  I swore the day Hannah was born that she’d never enter Starfleet.”

 

“As did I – the day she fell out of that tree.  But let’s face it.  She doesn’t want to please us anymore.  She wants to please herself.  I have a week with her before camp rewires that young mind into the second coming of the Borg.  Hopefully, I’ll balance her out.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

It was totally barbaric.

 

After unloading the shuttle, Hannah realized that only a few creature comforts from home had survived Uncle Chak’s routine inspection of what she’d packed.  There was the Flotter doll she’d had since she was two and the quilt her mother had completed when she was five.  Her mini holoprojector, satellite communicator, music chips and data PADDs filled with quantum theory were missing.

 

“Not _one_ PADD?  How do you expect me to keep myself entertained?  All of Professor Partridge’s lecture notes are on them!  I’ll be a week behind!”

 

Chakotay hammered in the last peg stabilizing the tent and began to wonder if any of this had been a good idea.  How could so much change in just two years?  Hannah used to love “roughing it” with her uncle; now all she could think about was sitting in a college lecture hall breathing recycled air.

 

Heaven on Earth lay before her and she barely noticed a thing.  The spot Chakotay had picked was a lush, shady patch in the Talamanca mountainous region.  Oak trees that were millennia of years old surrounded them.  He’d planned a trip via shuttle to a spot where they could hike a manageable distance to Costa Rica’s tallest peak, Cerro Chirripo, and another one to the base of a beautiful waterfall.  In a few weeks, Hannah’s world would be composed of theorems, cosmology, dorm rooms and mess halls.  He wanted to give her day-to-day life some perspective, but most importantly, he yearned to turn back the chronometer to when she was his and Phoebe’s.

 

Without realizing it, Chakotay had picked a setting that evoked New Earth and as he took in the terrain and spied a family of white-headed capuchin monkeys playing in the trees, the force of the past hit him.  But this trip was not about Kathryn; it was about her child.  Chakotay took a richly-bound book and a box of sharpened colored pencils from his knapsack and handed them to Hannah.

 

“Here.  I thought it would be good to keep a log of our adventure this week.  Your mother used to-“

 

Chakotay stopped himself short.  He had been thinking of Kathryn’s Da Vinci holodeck program and how she spent time in the master’s studio with quill, ink and parchment. 

 

Hannah looked at him quizzically.

 

“Mom used to do what?”

 

“Nothing.  It’s to make up for the PADDs.  You might find some interesting flora you can press between the pages or you could sketch a view of the peak from here.”

 

“Thanks for bringing me back to the Stone Age, Uncle Chak.”

 

“C’mon, love.  Get into the spirit of things.”

 

“Yippee.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

Three days had passed.  Uncle and niece were no closer to understanding one another than when they’d started.  Chakotay was at his wit’s end as to how to deal with her changing moods, her inability to concentrate on any one thing for too long.  The only constant had been the sketch book he’d given her.  Every time Chakotay stopped to examine a rare orchid or observe a colorful bird with his binoculars, Hannah took a moment to sit and scribble something down that engrossed her for a good ten or twenty minutes.

 

He longed to ask her about it, but he respected her need for privacy.  Chakotay figured that at some point, she’d share her thoughts with him, but it never happened.  On day four, he decided that it was time to risk the peace between them.

 

“You’ve been at it for almost an hour, Hannah.  Penny for your thoughts?”

 

She scrunched up her nose and the sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks merged in a way that he loved.

 

“What’s a ‘penny’?”

 

“An obsolete monetary unit.  Don’t change the subject.”

 

“It’s nothing –“

 

She gathered her pencils up in a hurry, and in the process, the book fell from her lap, opening to a page filled with numbers and symbols in various colors.

 

Chakotay picked up the tome.  On one side were indeed a few beautiful sketches – the La Paz Waterfall, a St. Augustine orchid.  But when he flipped to the back pages, there were scads upon scads of mathematical data, theorems and diagrams.  The numbers – all feverishly jotted down in a manic hurry - greatly _out_ numbered the sketches.  The different colors had been used to point out a pattern. 

 

She was creating something; Chakotay didn’t know what, but in that moment, all the colors merged into one.  Red.

 

“We had a deal, Hannah!  You would give me one week of your summer!  _One week!_ ”

 

She was startled when he threw the book down.  It was rare that he was angry.

 

“Damned infuriating child,” Chakotay muttered as he walked away.

 

Hannah followed, concerned but equally defiant.

 

“I can’t help it!  My head just fills with numbers.  I had to get them out!  And I’m not a baby anymore!”

 

She was right and he didn’t want it to be true.  Nevertheless, the whole week, Hannah had been disrespectful.  Chakotay wasn’t going to gloss over that fact.

 

“You used to be interested in new experiences.  Now, you can’t even enjoy what’s in front of you.  Do you realize the collective generations that helped keep this jungle pristine?  Do you appreciate anything?”

 

Her upper lip began to quiver and he was suddenly reminded; she’s only ten.

 

He dropped the pack and enfolded her into his arms.  Hannah’s head only came up to his belly as she held onto him tightly, beginning to sob.

 

“I’m sorry.  I don’t know what to do.  My brain moves faster than I can punch the data out.  Sometimes it scares me.”

 

“Then we need to talk about it.”

 

He moved them over to two neighboring rocks to sit.

 

“Why is this happening, Uncle Chak?”

 

He longed to tell her, but that would be breaking his promise to Phoebe.

 

“Who is your mother, Hannah?”

 

“Mommy is mom – Phoebe.  Phoebe Janeway.”

 

“The Janeways have a legacy, don’t they?”

 

“You mean Auntie Katie and Grandpa.”

 

“Yes.  From what I’ve heard, Grandpa was even more mathematically inclined than your aunt.  He may have given you some of his gifts.”

 

She wiped away her tears with her sleeve.

 

“Why don’t you ever talk about Auntie Katie?”  Even Professor Partridge tells me more about her than you do –“

 

“Ty doesn’t know anything about your aunt, Hannah.”  It was the human equivalent of a warning shot.  Chakotay got up and put on his pack, “Let’s get moving.  It’s going to be dark soon and we have to get back to camp.”

 

She stood up and struggled to keep up with his longer strides.

 

“See?  You won’t talk about her.  Professor Partridge told me that Auntie Katie was top of her class in secondary school.  Got top marks in physics and biochemistry.  We even won the same regional science fair competitions – two years in a row –“

 

Chakotay’s mind was a swirl of anger and slow-growing panic.  He knew Ty’s teachings had rubbed off on his niece, but he hadn’t known the extent of the man’s brainwashing with regards to Kathryn.  And now, it was too late to nip it in the bud.  Hannah was very, very bright.  Was she smart enough to request a simple DNA scan to test out her parentage?

 

No, she loved Phoebe too much to hurt her like that.  But then again, Hannah was drifting farther and farther away from her mother and Chakotay with each passing year.  She was following the siren call of a gift she couldn’t control or explain.

 

“Hannah, enough!  We can talk more at camp –“

 

“No!  We can talk now, but you don’t want to!”  She stopped abruptly and brought out the tricorder Chakotay had given her at the start of the week, “I’m charting my own path back!  I don’t want to walk with you!”

 

Within seconds, she disappeared into the thick bushes, the sounds of her running echoing all over the forest floor.

 

“Hannah!!  Come back!  I’m sorry!  Damn it, Hannah!”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

She’d reached that age where she thought she was invincible, and to a degree Hannah Janeway was far more capable in the wilderness than any normal ten year-old.  Her uncle had taken her on countless expeditions with him – to Egypt, China, Alaska and New Guinea.  She could find camp, come rain or come sand storm.

 

But she’d never been this upset before and it clouded her usual clear-headedness.

 

Twilight in the forest came early due to the lush canopy overhead.

 

“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” her soft-spoken mantra was only broken by the occasional animal cry.

 

Why didn’t she notice before how big and scary everything was?

 

“I’m so sorry, Uncle Chak.  If you find me, I promise I’ll never do this again.  I’ll sit in on your class at least once a week.  I’ll do the laundry like I’m supposed to.  I’ll clear the dishes without being asked…”

 

Suddenly, Hannah heard a low, warning growl behind her.

 

She turned slowly and nearly jumped out of her skin.  Crouched down low, its hackles raised, a cougar with gleaming eyes bared its canines at her with a hiss.

 

Hannah froze to the spot, panic rising in her gut.  She knew that if she moved, the cat would pounce.  She’d be dead within minutes.  All she could do was wait and hope it was only _she_ who had scared _it_ – that the animal would move away once it perceived her as no threat.

 

Suddenly, the cougar leapt.  Hannah braced herself for the sharp claws that would sink into her soft skin, but opened her eyes to find the cat wrestling and biting a large snake only a meter in front of her.  The reptile’s coloring blended perfectly into the jungle atmosphere; even if her mind had been clear, Hannah would easily have become the serpent’s next meal.

 

The cougar had managed to grip the snake’s black, triangular head in its jaws, shaking the body and beating it to the ground with its muscular legs.  Hannah fell backwards, her shaking knees unlocked.  She sat, watching in horror as the big cat killed it prey with successive whacks to the forest floor.

 

Once dead, the snake uncoiled belly-up and Hannah could see the full spectrum of the danger she had been in.  She recognized from the wildlife PADDs Chakotay had given her to study before the trip that this was an adult bushmaster, a highly-venomous snake that could repeatedly inject its victims with large amounts of poison.  This particular specimen was easily three meters long.  She owed her life to the cougar, but part of her wondered if the unappetizing kill had been done in order to get to the tastier one – her.

 

Hannah huddled into the tree behind her, curling up her knees to her chest, trying to protect her vital organs in case the cat pounced once more.  Trembling with the unused adrenaline, her heart bursting from her chest, she closed her eyes, willing herself invisible.

 

Suddenly, she felt a dry, sandpapery warmth lap at her right hand.  Hannah opened her eyes slowly and gazed eye-to-eye with the cougar, which was cleaning her and purring as though she were one of its cubs.  With the other hand, Hannah reached out slowly and ran her fingers over the cat’s ears, which twitched in response.  The purr deepened to a machine-like rumble.  Hannah felt eerily safe.  For the first time, she could study the eyes of an animal that was no mere animal.

 

Its eyes were blue.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

“I’m sorry, Uncle Chak -“

 

He turned and thought it was a dream. 

 

So far it had been a nightmare.  The park rangers were on a frantic search using three shuttles, scouring the jungle with high-intensity beacons to illuminate the trees.  They told him to stay at camp, even though every nerve in his body screamed for him to go off on his own. 

 

It was his damned fault.  Hannah was just as much his as she was Phoebe’s.  And he let them all down.  Again.  If she died or was presumed lost – oh spirits, the agony - he would never be able to live.

 

But here she was, walking towards him.  He saw a flash of tan, highlighted by red, beside her, but as Hannah embraced him, it disappeared.

 

Chakotay was crying.  All he could see in front of him was her.

 

“She led me here.”

 

“Who?”

 

Hannah turned but the cougar was long gone.

 

“The big cat with the strange eyes.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

Chakotay stopped questioning the universe’s plans for his niece.  He believed every bit of Hannah’s story as she described it in vivid detail - the snake, the cougar, its eyes, its familiar treatment of the child.  In his heart, he knew Kathryn’s spirit had traveled a long distance to protect her daughter from harm.  Chakotay kept that kernel of truth to himself and heeded the cougar’s unspoken message to stop fighting his niece’s desires and guide her through the rough terrain instead. 

 

On their last night in the wilderness, Hannah agreed to do a vision quest and sure enough, the cat reappeared.  She kept the knowledge to herself, but the experience unlocked two years of hiding her gifts from Chakotay.  Her heart poured out with the fascination she had with her aunt, the accomplishments the woman made in her lifetime, and the many aspects they had in common – or would have had Kathryn still been alive.

 

Chakotay took it all in for the first time and felt the black scar on his heart bury itself under a new layer of tissue fed by Hannah’s enthusiasm for Kathryn’s childhood.  He knew his niece had a photographic memory for science; it was only rivaled by the girl’s interest in her much-revered aunt.

 

He let her weave her own legend and kept the profundity of his own stark love for Kathryn hidden deep within.  Chakotay realized now that Hannah’s destiny could no longer be held back.  If she wanted to be Starfleet, there was nothing he or Phoebe could do.  When they pulled, she pushed.  If they wanted to be part of her life, they would have to support her dream.

 

At the end of the trip, Hannah insisted that they keep the incident with the cougar between themselves.  As reluctant as Chakotay was about keeping secrets from Phoebe, he agreed that troubling her with an incident that would never be repeated was unnecessary.  The dangers of the earth were as treacherous as that of the sky. 

 

At least amongst the stars, Hannah would be at home – with herself and the mother she would never know.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

It was a horrible first day at camp.

 

Hannah had miscalculated everything.  Her roommate, Mariah, was a vapid, trust-fund baby who had been pressured by Starfleet-lifer parents to enroll in the coveted program.  She saw the rare opportunity as only a nerdy means to a boy-crazy end.  Seventy percent of campers were male and Hannah was too young to care about the opposite sex. 

 

During the seminars, everyone thought she was weird.  She sat up front and raised her hand too much.  She knew the answers to everything.  But wasn’t everyone supposed to?

It didn’t help that Hannah was blind to her short stature, having been born with such a big personality and a mother to match.  She didn’t realize how much of a square peg she was in a sea of round holes.

 

The mess hall was a mortifying experience.  After replicating her usual tray of vegetarian items – mushroom soup, a piece of bread and a salad – she struggled with where to sit.  Mariah and her clique hadn’t made an effort to hide their giggles as she passed their table, which left her with only one option – a bright, neon-like patch of sun near the windows. 

 

A never-ending table for one.

 

“Excuse me, aren’t you Hannah Janeway?”

 

A dark-haired boy approached her from behind.  His green eyes were placid and his smile reassuring.  Nevertheless, Hannah was used to her infamous last name as being a minus more than a plus.  This guy was either a fan of her aunt or one of the bullies who thought she’d name-dropped her way into camp.  

 

Neither boded well for any kind of acquaintanceship.

 

“So what if I am?  What’s it to you?”

 

“I’m Tristan Ayala.”  He stuck out his hand and flashed a smile that lit the room.

 

Hannah wanted to crawl under the nearest console.  Tristan was the son of the late Mike Ayala, Uncle Chakotay’s friend.  The last time they’d seen each other was at the fifth annual Voyager Families reunion.  He had been gawky at eleven, his ears too big for his head and his mouth too big for his brain. 

 

Something remarkable had happened since then.  Mike’s quiet good looks and soft demeanor had transformed his son’s features.  He was holovid handsome and Hannah felt like an ugly duckling next to his swan.

 

“I thought you’d like to join us.”

 

He motioned over to his motley mix of friends at the crowded table in the back.  Some of them even waved when they caught her eye.

 

“I know what it’s like.  I was twelve the first time I enrolled.  My first day was hell.  I promised myself that I’d buy a sundae for anyone who broke my record for youngest camper.  So I’m buying.  What do you say?”

 

For the first time that day, a lopsided smile formed on Hannah Janeway’s face.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

It was 21:00 hours and Chakotay eyes were stuck on the same sentence in the student essay he’d been grading for the last ten minutes.

 

Why hadn’t she called?

 

It was her first day at camp.  What was she doing?  Was she okay?  Was she overwhelmed?  Was she making good choices?

 

While their wilderness trip and the fracas it created brought them together, everything was forgotten the moment Hannah had walked through the door and checked her messages.  Ty had given her extra material to study to keep her ahead of the other campers before she even set foot in San Diego.  She chatted excitedly with her friends and planned her roster of electives down to the hour and minute of each day.

 

She seemed to have it all together.  Hannah was ready to take on the world.

 

Then why did it hurt him so much?

 

Was it because he felt left behind?  Where did the precious years go?  Was it all borrowed time?  Would she ever really need him again?

 

He dropped the PADD he was reading and walked over to the replicator, debating his selection.

 

Chakotay was four years sober.  He hadn’t entered a holodeck, taken a drink or used a hypospray without an addiction specialist’s supervision since the day Phoebe had kidnapped him from Bajor.  But now his thirst for something to numb the pain was coming back.

 

He was tapping his fingers on the lit console before him when a soft beep came from his view screen.  When Chakotay saw the call was from Hannah, he wanted to collapse into the seat with relief.

 

She was crying.  Suddenly, he wanted to come and pull her out of there.

 

“Hannah!  What’s wrong?”

 

“Uncle Ch-chak…”

 

She stopped to blow her nose.  He wanted to reach through the screen and embrace her.

 

“Slow down, love.  Breathe.  Take your time.”

 

“My roommate is so _mean_.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“While I was sitting in study hall, she slipped a piece of chocolate under my…m-my –“

 

“Honey, calm down.  You can tell me anything.”

 

“…S-she …basically I was wearing white pants and she made it look like I-I…had…an accident!”

 

With that, Hannah’s beautiful face crumpled and she began to sob.  Chakotay swallowed.  He wanted to kill the heinous beast.

 

“What’s her name?  Who are her parents?”

 

“No! No, it’s okay.  I’m rooming with someone else now.  Someone closer to my age.  She’s twelve.  And I bumped into Tristan.  Tristan Ayala?  Do you remember him?”

 

Inwardly, Chakotay sighed with relief, but was careful not to let his expression betray anything.  Of course he remembered Tristan.  It was he who called the lad – knowing that the two youngsters would be at camp together.  Chakotay had gone as far as to use his connections so that the two would be in the same section together.

 

“Vaguely.  Why?”

 

“He’s so nice.  I ate lunch and dinner with him and his friends.  They’re all very, very nice.  And smart.”

 

“Like you.”

 

“Like me.”

 

She blew her nose and the condenser microphone almost shorted out Chakotay’s view screen.

 

“I miss you, Uncle Chak.”

 

This time, he couldn’t hide his feelings.  His eyes filled and he tilted his head to keep them from spilling.  There would be no descent into despair.  Not tonight.

 

“I miss you too, baby.”

 

“Goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight.”

 


	3. Phoebe

*

 

 _She who always seems so happy in a crowd_  
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud  
No one's allowed to see them when they cry  
She may be the love that cannot hope to last  
May come to me from shadows of the past  
That I'll remember 'til the day I die

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

It had been nine years since he’d last donned the red and black of a Starfleet uniform.

 

He was still Professor Chakotay, but not the Professor Chakotay, assistant dean of Paleontology at U.C. Berkeley.  He was now a professor who taught Advanced Tactics at the Starfleet Academy.

 

He was a bit rusty around the edges, but after spending a few months going over his old notes and supplementing them with almost twenty years of new data, it was like riding a horse.  One never forgot the feel of the animal.

 

Clutching his briefcase and _The_ _Sentinel_ , Professor Chakotay entered the classroom with nervous anticipation.  The last five years had been good to him.   A much-improved diet and exercise regimen had brought him back to his former self.  There were no more relapses into his depression.  If someone told him he resembled the Maquis rebel Kathryn met almost two decades before, he wouldn’t have believed it.

 

But it was true.  He stared out into a lecture hall _filled_ with young women.  They were legion.  And a good majority of them were redheads.  Some of them clearly not natural ones.

 

Chakotay blinked.  He discreetly pinched himself.  No, it wasn’t a dream.  Without saying a word of introduction, he walked briskly out the door.  He turned around.  Yep, he was in the right room.

 

He walked back inside.  Spying one lone male in the bunch, he went over, pulled the young man to stand and whispered.

 

“Hi, son, what’s your name?”

 

“Hamish Falen, sir.”

 

“And what class is this?”

 

The young man eyed Chakotay quizzically.  Was it a trick question?

 

“Advanced Tactics?”

 

“Right.  Thank you.  You can sit down.”

 

Chakotay put the remote microphone on his lapel, took a deep breath and spoke.

 

“Good morning…”

 

“Good morning,” the lecture hall gave a collective, far-too feminine sigh.

 

It was going to be an interesting first semester.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

Two years ago, at the age of thirteen, Hannah had entered the Academy as the youngest freshman in thirty years.  Chakotay had spent months gently convincing Phoebe that her daughter belonged in that milieu, despite the fact that it was the same environment that had contributed to Edward and Kathryn’s deaths.  Hannah could not be denied her dream to travel amongst the stars, but that meant her mother needed to make sure the organization she trusted to take care of her baby wasn’t corrupt.

 

All that mattered to Phoebe was that Chakotay re-establish his contacts with key political figures within Starfleet.  Her annual Voyager Family reunions had evolved into monthly meetings with various interested and involved relatives of the deceased.  One of the few things they had in common was that they all wanted answers but had been given none in the thirteen year passage of time.

 

Starfleet balked at any request for routine sweeps of the outer sectors.  Phoebe’s instincts told her that something sinister was in play.  With all the knowledge and technology the crew amassed during their time in the Delta Quadrant, the cost-benefit analysis was a no-brainer.  Why was Voyager left to rot somewhere in the outer reaches of the Alpha Quadrant, available for any pirating ships to plunder?

 

Harry’s messages over the years had become equally frustrating.  He was still consumed with solving the phase variance.  At the same time, he found crooked investors to fund private deep space missions that had come up with nothing so far.  Phoebe wanted a real resolution, however long it took.  If it amassed her lifetime and Hannah’s, then so be it.

 

That morning, Phoebe was attending a lecture in a neighboring wing of the Academy.  She had read about a new professor who championed a controversial form of temporal mechanics. 

 

Her name was Tessa Omond.

 

“This is our timeline – we’ll call it ‘A’.”

 

Professor Omond was sketching what looked like a tree trunk on a lecture PADD.  Behind her, the image was blown up so that the person in the back row could see the diagram.

 

Tessa then drew a branch coming off of the trunk.

 

“This is the juncture at which A is disrupted, forming another alternate timeline ‘B.’”

 

A hand shot up and Tessa nodded.

 

“If ‘B’ exists then ‘A’ no longer does.”

 

Omond shook her head.

 

“That’s what orthodox temporal mechanics suggests.  I believe both timelines will exist independently of one another.  Neither will touch.  Each individual affects timeline ‘A’ and ‘B’ and from that –“

 

She drew smaller branches coming off of both until they looked the veins on a leaf.

 

“ – until the number of timelines is infinite.  The ability of having more than one state of being is possible.”

 

Another student spoke up.

 

“So if I could go back in time and say, get an ‘A’ grade for this class instead of the ‘B’ I got last semester, the person with the ‘B’ would still exist?”

 

The lecture hall filled with titters.

 

“Exactly!”

 

The chime rang and the class began to file out.

 

Phoebe got up from her placement in the first row and tried to blend in with the others.

 

“Excuse me, aren’t you the artist – Phoebe Janeway?”

 

Tessa was before her, offering a hand to shake.

 

“Yes, how did you –“

 

“I’m a big fan.  Actually, that’s only half-true.  I’m a big fan of, well, everything to do with Voyager.  It’s a bit of an obsession actually.  It’s kind of embarrassing –“

 

“I’m starving.  Can I take you to lunch?”

 

Tessa’s face lit up.

 

“I-I-I’ll buy!”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

In an Italian restaurant close to campus, Ty Partridge was having lunch with the new professor of Advanced Tactics.  For a smart guy, the newbie was really dumb.

 

“You really don’t know?  Christ, Chakotay, where have you been?”

 

“Raising a child – with no help from you, I might add.”

 

“Ix-nay on the annah-Hay talk.  This is about you, my friend.”

 

If someone told Chakotay that Ty resembled Tom Paris, he’d deny it.  Nevertheless, the man’s incorrigible behavior was comforting.

 

“You need to lighten up.  Take advantage of the limelight.  You’re Starfleet’s Most Eligible Bachelor for five years running!”

 

“According to whom?”

 

“ _The Starfleet Gazette_ does that questionnaire every year.  Please don’t tell me you’ve never – you haven’t, have you?”

 

“Ty –“

 

“And the more you hide behind your monk-like robes, the more the women will want you.  Half of them are in love with Voyager and the other half want to be Janeway –“

 

“STOP.”

 

His voice had gradually risen until the last one-word sentence was a shout.

 

“I remain a professional.  A professional who needs a change of subject,” he hissed.

 

Ty took a sip of his wine.

 

“Well, since we can’t ix-nay, how do you feel about annah-Hay taking your class next semester?  Think you can be impartial?”

 

Chakotay looked up and stopped chewing.  His face grew pale and he swallowed.  Hard.

 

“Take it easy, chief.  Didn’t know it was that big of a deal –“

 

Harry Kim was standing in the doorway. 

 

Chakotay hadn’t seen the former ensign in almost three years and yet there he was, staring at him and gesturing to come outside.

 

“No.  It’s not that.  Ty, I just remembered something crucial I forgot to do –“

 

“No problem.  It’s my turn to buy.  Go.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

“So have you ever thought of going back in time to prevent the accident?”

 

So far lunch had been going better than she’d planned.  Phoebe hardly had to pick Tessa’s brain.  The woman left her skull open for all to see.  She was lucky that Omond was such a rabid fan; she didn’t need to be brought up to speed on anything and seemed just as frustrated as the Voyager families were with the dead-end situation.

 

“Everyday.  I just never thought it was possible.”

 

Tessa leaned into Phoebe as though she were sharing a secret with an old friend.

 

“You’re going to think I’m nuts and I probably already am, so I’m not risking much by telling you this.  I don’t know how much you know about Borg technology, but a good friend of mine in the Beta Quadrant told me about something called a ‘temporal transmitter.’  It’s a device that allows the Borg to send messages to drones in a different time period.

 

Here’s the kicker.  Seven of Nine was part Borg.  A professor of Borg technology at M.I.T. told me how this baby works.  If someone can access her chronometric node and find out her exact time of death, you could send a message through her to stop Voyager from making that crucial mistake.”

 

Phoebe was speechless.  It was more than she’d expected from auditing the young woman’s class.

 

“Is there a way I can meet with this friend of yours – from the Beta Quadrant?”

 

Tessa sipped her drink and gazed heavenward with a small smirk.

 

“I think a conversation could be arranged.  But a lot of his stuff is top secret.  He’s a civilian but much of his contract work is with Starfleet Intelligence.”

 

“I’ll do anything.  It would mean the world.”

 

Tessa bit her lip.  Phoebe braced herself for the worst and mentally counted what was left in her bank account.

 

“Could you – introduce me to… Chakotay?”

 

Before Phoebe could answer Tessa, her communicator beeped.

 

“Hold on, I’m sorry,” she tapped the device and answered, “Phoebe here.”

 

*It’s Chakotay.  Something’s come up.  Meet me at the Night Owl*

 

His timing couldn’t have been better.

 

“Give me a half hour?”

 

*Acknowledged*

 

Just one day with Starfleet and the man had reverted back to the clipped jargon of yore.

 

Phoebe took one look at Tessa and read her nervous, clearly excited expression.

 

“I guess this is your lucky day.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

The attic of the Night Owl was a place few people knew about unless they were good friends with the aging owner, Jeffrey Wright.  He’d been in the neighborhood longer than anyone cared to remember, having served the best coffee for the likes of William Riker when he was a cadet. 

 

The man was politically-active despite how ancient he appeared to be, and he could still tell the goodies from the baddies.  Occasionally, he’d provide a safe haven for people in trouble.  Jeffrey had a soft spot for Harry Kim; he knew the man was a renegade, but his heart was always in the right place – with Voyager.

 

Phoebe could tell from the suspicious looks that greeted her that this meeting was serious and private, but she needed the young woman who strode in beside her.

 

“Harry, Chakotay – I’d like you to meet Tessa Omond.  She teaches Multiple Temporal Mechanics at –“

 

“I know who you are,” Harry piped up, “I’ve read your work.”

 

“I-I’m flattered that you kept up –“

 

“There’s not much to do out there in Sector 5030.  And my resignation stopped all the regular feeds I’d been getting.  Phoebe keeps me up to date.”

 

The years had worn down Harry’s features, but his passion and drive were still evident.  One could tell, however, that his upbeat attitude had long been replaced by a bitter cynicism wrought from many tussles with Starfleet bureaucracy.

 

“Excuse me for being blunt,” Chakotay narrowed his eyes, “But why are you here?”

 

Phoebe could see Tessa’s infatuation from the look on her face and realized the woman would do anything for him.

 

“We can trust her.  She might be able to help.”

 

Chakotay relented and pulled out a chair.

 

Harry knew they didn’t have much time, so he got right to the point.

 

“They’ve found Voyager.”

 

Phoebe wanted to hit the roof.

 

“Where??  How?!”

 

Chakotay took her by the hand and put a finger to his lips.

 

Harry continued.

 

“The wreckage is trapped under twenty meters of ice on an L-Class planet in the Takara sector.  The reason why I haven’t been able to find it – although I know that area like the back of my hand – is because there is a UFP force field over the entire ionosphere, blocking scans from any passing ships.

 

Nine years ago, one of the Soong-type androids was found by the Enterprise-E on Kolaris III.  His name was B-4.  After Lieutenant Commander Data died, B-4 was given his memories and began working with Starfleet Intelligence on covert missions.  One of them involved salvaging Voyager – specifically for its quantum slipstream drive.”

 

Phoebe felt physically ill.

 

“So they knew all this time…”

 

Chakotay’s jaw set, his anger barely controlled.  Harry took a breath and exhaled.

 

“Starfleet took the slipstream technology and has been refining it for the last five years.  To report Voyager found would have alerted Federation enemies to the device’s existence, so they kept it hidden.  Starfleet plans to modify the drive and use it as a weapon.”

 

“My God.”  Tessa’s twenty-year loyalty to the organization that helped build her career was decimated in one fell swoop, “H-how could that be?”

 

“Where did you get the information?”  Phoebe asked.

 

“From B-4 himself.   With Data’s memories, he’s developed what could be called a conscience.  And he’s been following Voyager’s plight since he first got involved.  During the salvage operation, he downloaded all of the ship’s logs.  Most importantly, he has Voyager’s last navigational and structural readings.  With this information, I could calculate the proper phase corrections once and for all.  And with your ties to all the families, they could pressure media outlets to blow the lid off of Starfleet.”

 

Phoebe looked to Chakotay and could tell the man wasn’t on board.

 

“Something’s on your mind.”

 

“I’m not sure how this benefits anyone until we get more protection.”  He was thinking of Hannah, “Where could we go after something like this?  It’s too risky.  We need back up.”

 

“I need to find the phase corrections!”  Harry had spent too much time in deep space.  He was becoming unglued.

 

Chakotay finally exploded.

 

“Harry, this decade-long obsession has no point!  Unless you can go back in time and change everything, what use are the corrections except to put your overactive brain at ease?!”

 

Phoebe nudged Tessa.  They were of one mind, but the latter was too overwhelmed to remember why she was there.

 

“Tell them.”

 

“Tell us what?”  Chakotay eyed Tessa with skepticism.

 

She swallowed.

 

“I can get us a Borg temporal transmitter.”

 

Those were the three magic words that lit up Harry’s face for the first time in thirteen years.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

They didn’t have much time.

 

B-4 was en route to another mission in the Beta Quadrant.  If he stayed much longer on Bajor, his associates would notice.  They had to be very careful.  Chakotay and Harry didn’t want to risk being recognized and disguised themselves as visiting aliens.  Tessa and Phoebe met up with them in a run-down warehouse on the outskirts of town.

 

Inside the large, empty room, each person shook the android’s hand.  After introductions, pleasantries and profound expressions of regret were exchanged all around, B-4 used a laser scalpel to cut away the skin on his skull, exposed the neural circuitry by which Harry could hook up the many wires, and proceeded with the data transfer.

 

During the upload, a tense silence filled the room.  Chakotay took off the alien disguise so that his skin could breathe.  He thought of Hannah and wondered how her stay with Tristan and the Ayalas were going.  It was a week before Christmas and he wanted to be home in time to spend it with her.

 

“Commander,” B-4 pierced the air with his familiar tenor voice, “I have an encrypted personal log entry addressed to you.  Judging from the stardate, it’s the last one recorded.  I don’t have your codes –“

 

From what Harry told him, Chakotay assumed the crew died on impact.  It was probably an entry from earlier in the day.

 

“It’s ‘Chakotay omega pi epsilon.’”

 

“Shall I upload it to a PADD for you or would you like to hear it now?”

 

He was too exhausted to read anything.

 

“Now’s fine.”

 

B-4 opened his mouth and a static-filled transmission began.

 

*Ch-chakotay…*

 

Oh spirits.  It was her voice.

 

Everyone in the room stood at that moment, with the exception of B-4, who stared straight ahead and delivered Kathryn’s message.

 

*I have no idea what time it is…p-probably forty-five minutes…s-since we crashed landed on this planet…cold, so c-cold…I can’t move…cold…I’m thinking of you…w-where you are…if you’re lost…like m-m-me…My only regret, i-i-is that l-last night didn’t come…s-s-s-sooner…Oh Chakotay…*

 

Tessa’s hands had been brought up to her face.  Phoebe stared dumbly at the wall, her eyes dry from the shock of hearing her sister’s voice from the grave.  Harry reluctantly looked over at his friend, who had crumpled up in the corner, tears streaming down his face –

 

*Oh, my love….how I w-wish I could….b-be…in your arms….r-right now…To…b-be… to…d-d-die…with…out…you…is…is…so…cruel…*

 

The transmission faded to its static-filled hiss.

 

Silence.  No movement.

 

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

 

Chakotay had his fists pressed into his eyes, his head thrown back, the magnitude of thirteen years without her falling over him in large drowning waves of sorrow, anger, despair, desolation, and heartache. 

 

Pain and grief, inconsolable and absolute.  And the rage it brought –

 

There wasn’t an item in the room to throw or to decimate.  Chakotay turned to the wall and pounded it until his fists were bloody and mixed with the salt water that ran down his knuckles.

 

Phoebe let him empty himself for a long minute before she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him away from the wall.  No one wanted to touch him, but she needed him to be strong.  He had come too far.  She needed him to be strong because without him, she couldn’t be strong either.

 

They collapsed into a heap in the corner.  Phoebe cradled his head in the crook of her elbow and imagined her big friend as the small boy he probably couldn’t ever remember being.  She brought her cheek to his forehead and tried to soothe the rapid breathing from his exertions by holding him tightly to her.

 

“I-I always assumed she died on impact.  But she suffered horribly!  How can I live with that –“

 

“You must and you will.  She loved you.  She’d want you to live.  To raise Hannah.  Think of Hannah.”

 

“How can I?  When everyday, Hannah looks more and more…like her?”

 

A final beep signaled the end of the uploads.

 

Harry sniffled, wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve and began packing up the equipment.

 

“We have to get out of here.”

 

Phoebe nodded to Tessa.

 

“There’s a dermal regenerator in my bag.”

 

Tessa found the device and began running them over Chakotay’s fists.  She swallowed as she watched the light in his eyes fade and his expression return to its usual guarded state.  She would never admire a man more in her life.

 

B-4 stood up, the skin on his head sutured, not a mark upon him.  Phoebe walked to him and offered him a hand to shake.

 

“Thank you, Data.”

 

The android smiled; it was a mixture of sadness and surprise.

 

“You’re welcome.  That’s the first time anyone’s called me that.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

Everyday thereafter was filled with a choice to drink or not to drink.  To medicate or not to medicate.

 

Phoebe could sense Chakotay struggling through the holiday, going through the motions of decorating the Christmas tree for Hannah as they did every year.  He played the ‘happy uncle’ well for his niece, but Phoebe could see beneath the surface, for she knew that place better than most.

 

In the new year, Phoebe contacted Tessa’s friend in the Beta Quadrant and played the wide-eyed tech geek, but the man was unwilling to do more than brag about his exploits over the view screen.  Raymond Carter fancied himself a secret agent type even though he was more of a glorified Starfleet accountant.  Nevertheless, Phoebe could tell he’d fallen a little bit in lust with her.  

 

In the end, she wrangled an opportunity to join him on Risa Prime.  After a quick romp in bed, Phoebe took advantage of his slumber and downloaded all his files pertaining to the Beta Quadrant and Borg salvage operations from his computer.  Carter was none the wiser.  Now she just wished he’d stop calling her.

 

Harry had called in a favor from a mercenary friend who would loan them a freighter.  Every weekend, Phoebe held secret meetings with certain members of the Voyager family.  She had already amassed a small crew.  In the dead of night, they ran a series of holodeck simulations to test out a mission they planned to go on in less than a month.

 

Harry and Phoebe agreed to keep Chakotay in the dark about their plans.  The man hadn’t been the same since he’d come back from their trip to Bajor.  He was concentrating on the course load he was teaching and it was touching to see how he tried his best not to favor Hannah now that she was in one of his classes.  For the first time, Phoebe saw Chakotay for the commander he had been in the Delta Quadrant.  He was hard on Hannah; he expected his niece to do better than any student four years older than she was.  He gave her no special treatment and it made Phoebe love the man more than she already did.

 

Keeping the mission a secret from Chakotay was about more than sparing his troubled mind.  Phoebe knew that obtaining the Borg temporal transmitter was risky.  The simulations resulted in at least two fatalities amongst her crew.

 

It was a ninety percent chance that someone would not come out of it alive and she knew that if he was given the opportunity, Chakotay would demand to be part of the mission for this reason.  That couldn’t happen.  Hannah needed him more than ever and Phoebe was willing to sacrifice everything she had to keep them together.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

The hijacked shuttle’s warp engines were down and Phoebe – weakened by phaser burns - could only pilot it at impulse.

 

The shuttle’s core was leaking plasma and the only way she could give Harry and Tristan’s freighter enough time to jump to warp was if she intercepted the Cardassian ship pursuing them and rammed it.

 

“Initiating auto self-destruct sequence.”

 

For the first time since Hannah was born, Phoebe understood what her purpose in life was.

 

Harry’s static-filled transmission came through as red alert klaxons filled her ears.

 

*Phoebe!  We can beam you to the freighter!*

 

“No time!  I only have enough power to get the device to you…”

 

She pressed a series of commands and the temporal transmitter disappeared in a shower of light.

 

The shuttle rocked as Phoebe could feel the hull breaking apart.  The Cardassian ship loomed ahead of her.

 

*We’ve got the transmitter!  We still have time!  Phoebe!!  I won’t leave you there-*

 

She cut the transmission and took the ship off autopilot as she rerouted power from life support to the engines.

 

“I love you Hannah.  Take good care of your uncle.  I’ll see you in another timeline…”

 

The shuttle surged ahead and collided with the massive enemy ship.

 

A giant fireball sent shockwaves into space.

 

The freighter rocked and a severely wounded Harry looked out from his view screen and saw nothing but debris.

 

“NOOO!”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

When Tristan came to the door and delivered the news to Hannah and Chakotay, they were both numb with shock.  Then anger hit.  Chakotay had to come between the youngsters to keep Hannah from clawing his eyes out.

 

“Why didn’t you stop her!!!  Why didn’t you tell me?!  Both of you! Why?!”

 

Hannah ran to her room and didn’t come out for two days.

 

On the third day, emotionally spent from crying jags, she unlocked her door and trudged to the couch where her uncle had fallen asleep.  Scrapbooks and holoimage albums were strewn about.  A sealed bottle of whiskey stood on the dining room table next to a clean, dry shot glass.

 

“Uncle Chak.”

 

He stirred and mumbled, opening his eyes.  She held his hand.

 

“I want to go home.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

The memorial service in Indiana was small – comprised of mostly Voyager family members and held in secret.

 

Chakotay observed his niece and noticed she hadn’t shed a tear during any of the eulogies.  It worried him greatly.

 

By the time the last guest paid their respects and said their goodbyes, it was twilight on the farm.  As Chakotay moved the plates to the recycler, he noticed Hannah wasn’t in the room.

 

Suddenly a large crash came from the backyard.

 

Chakotay rushed outside and his heart dropped to his feet.

 

Sobbing, tears blurring her vision, a hysterical Hannah stood on the deck of the gigantic tree ship her uncle had made for her when she was six and began ripping away at it with a large axe.

 

“Stop it!  Hannah!”

 

She was ten meters high in the tree.  A wall of the ship had already been torn apart.

 

“Damned, fucking!!!  All my life – Voyager, Voyager, VOYAGER!!  I just wanted my mommy and all she could think about was Captain fucking JANEWAY!”

 

Her wail of pain could be heard kilometers away.

 

Chakotay risked getting hit with loose beams and flying splinters as he climbed the rungs on the trunk and swung himself up to the platform. 

 

The deck groaned with the weight of both their bodies.

 

She was a meter away.  Chakotay wound the dumb waiter rope over his fist three times.  The entire apparatus was going to collapse.

 

He reached out his free hand.

 

“Hannah.  Come here –“

 

“NO!  You’re going to leave me, too!  Or die or do some stupid, pointless, meaningless thing for a ghost you love more than me!!!”

 

The deck was giving way, slanting to the right –

 

“Hannah, baby, please.”  Chakotay was blubbering in fear and panic, “Take my hand.  I’m not leaving you.  Let me catch you.  Just like when you were six.  Let me save you the way you saved me.”

 

Her face crumpled as her grip on the axe loosened and it fell to the ground.  Just as she reached him, the platform disassembled and her feet fell out from under her.

 

Chakotay caught her arm and was pulled down by their combined weight, the rope around his hand nearly yanking the wrist out of its socket. 

 

The momentum had swung them into the tree.

 

“Hannah!  Find you footing on the rungs!  Hold on!”

 

She was shaking, but she managed to get a grip with both hands and feet.

 

He talked her through it until they were huddled safely together on the ground.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

They were lying on the grass, looking up at the stars. 

 

 “Hannah, it’s time I told you something.”

 

It had taken him twenty minutes to calm her down.  Chakotay had never held on to anyone so tightly before.  She was his life.  All they had left now was each other.  But she needed to know the truth.  She was only fifteen years old and he mourned the childhood that was taken from her.  Hannah’s life had been filled with too many secrets, too much repressed guilt and pain on the part of others to keep things from her.

 

“Phoebe has always been your mother.  Never stop believing that.  She loved you more than anything.  Your mother couldn’t have children of her own, but she chose to have you.  Phoebe used eggs that were harvested from her sister.  Your aunt is not your aunt, Hannah.  Kathryn Janeway is your biological mother.”

 

As he held his niece to him, Chakotay could feel the wheels turning in her mind and braced himself for whatever followed.

 

Hannah was stunned silent.  The anguish for her mother was coupled with the sudden understanding of why she was the way she was.  All the similarities between herself and her aunt – mother – had new meaning.  All the questions she wanted to ask were being answered by this one life-altering truth.

 

Chakotay poured out the pain in his heart.

 

“I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive your mother for hiding the mission from me, but after staring at an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s for the past week, I’ve figured out why.  The anniversaries of your grandfather, your grandmother and Kathryn’s deaths wore her down more and more with each passing year. 

 

She hid her pain.  She never fully expressed it.  She had to be strong for you.  And when you rebelled and took Kathryn’s path, it scared her – more than either one of us will ever know. 

 

In the last conversation we had, your mother said to me, ‘This is a future no one wants.’  The way she carried out that mission was stupid and reckless, but I think your mother’s heart has always been with you.  She wanted a world that was safe for you to live in, even if it took sacrificing her own life.  She felt she couldn’t protect you and somehow – who knows why – she thinks I can.”

 

Hannah put her head on Chakotay’s chest and looked up at the night sky.

 

“They’re both there together, while we’re down here.”

 

He kissed the top of her head.

 

“From this moment forward, there will be no secrets.  From now on, what we do will be up to you.”

 

With a final shudder, Hannah swallowed the lump in her throat and with it, her childhood, as she lay back flush against the grass, feeling the cool air envelop her.

 

“Find Harry.  Tell him to keep working on the phase variance with Voyager’s new readings, but on one condition.”

 

“Yes, cadet?”

 

Hannah turned on one side and eyed Chakotay with the seriousness of the young woman she’d become.

 

“You’re going to let me help.”

 

His smile was sad.

 

“Understood.”

 


	4. Hannah Kathryn Janeway

 

 “Harry, this isn’t working.”

 

With hands on her hips, Hannah Janeway spoke to the former ensign in the neighboring holodeck via the comm.

 

“The variance is still off by 0.005 –“

 

*But we did that correction yesterday*

 

“Then do it again!  And again and again and again!  Until we get it right!”

 

“ _Hannah._ ”

 

Chakotay rose from his seat in the first officer’s chair.

 

“Harry, let’s take a break.  In fact, let’s take the rest of the day off –“

 

His niece was about to protest, so he placed a finger over her lips.

 

“I’m sure our little Napoleon has forgotten that her formal is tonight and we need to get ready, right princess?

 

“Crap!  I _did_ forget!”  She began chewing absently on a nail.

 

Chakotay swatted her hand away.

 

“Uh-uh.  See you tomorrow, Harry?”

 

A big sigh overwhelmed the comm like a gale of wind.

 

*Bright and bushy-tailed as Her Highness expects*

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

Chakotay didn’t know where the time had gone, but Hannah Janeway had transformed from an awkward tomboy into a quintessential beauty within the past two years.

 

Her freckles had faded into the creamy complexion that occasionally had its pimply moments and her hair was now a long, thick mass of auburn highlighted by subtle streaks of blond that shone in the sun.  With her indigo eyes and high cheekbones, Hannah cut an intimidating figure in her final year at the Academy.  Still, she was without a boyfriend, a fact which she bemoaned due to peer pressure.

 

It was not that the boys were too stupid to catch on; it was because they felt they could never catch up.  Hannah was poised to become the youngest Summa Cum Laude in the history of the Academy.  It set her too far apart from the other students and she felt the isolation more as her coltish good looks emerged.

 

She had been dateless for the formal until the last minute, when Chakotay remembered her old friend.  Hannah hadn’t seen her ‘cousin’ Tristan in almost a year.  She had since forgiven him for going on the mission that killed Phoebe.  She could tell from their correspondence that the tragedy had left its mark on him.  In her newfound maturity, Hannah realized how lucky she had been to not witness her mother’s death. 

 

Ensign Tristan Ayala was home after his first mission in the Beta Quadrant.  Despite what the Voyager families now knew of Starfleet’s corruption, they continued to sanction having their own within its ranks.  Chakotay – ever the shrewd tactician – argued that it was better to befriend the enemy in a quiet, insidious way, than reveal the scandal for all to see.  The intel various spies had procured proved his tactic continued to be sound.

 

Chakotay paced the hallway outside Hannah’s closed bedroom door, wearing a groove into the hardwood floor.  He’d checked his chronometer five times in the last ten minutes.  He was dressed like a nervous bridegroom, his black bow tie askew and his rose boutonniere pinned upside-down. 

 

Nevertheless, the professor appeared to be quite the dashing chaperone, his cropped military cut streaked with distinguished lines of grey and his face freshly-shaved.  A centimeter of cuff showed beneath his jacket sleeves and when he brought a shaking hand up to run his fingers along his hair, one could see the silver akoonah cufflinks Hannah had given him last Christmas.

 

“Chakotay, it’ll be _fine_.”

 

Tessa stood off to one side, dressed in a silk burgundy column dress and matching wrap.

 

“Maybe she’s having trouble with zippers?  Hooks and eyes?  When I replicated that dress, I didn’t realize what a conundrum it would be to get in and out of.  I don’t know how you women do it…”

 

Tessa smirked.  This was why she loved him.

 

“Puzzling, I know.”

 

“…And the undergarments involved?”  Chakotay’s normally placid face broke into one of abject horror, “Tessa, these are the days when I long for Phoebe’s input.  All the materials required to suck in, pull out, enhance, detract, _dis_ tract – could you please just knock on her door and see if she’s okay?”

 

Tessa put up her hand in a ‘stop’ gesture.

 

“Oh _no_.  You’re on your own.  That young lady’s claws come out when she sees me.”

 

“I’ll never understand the cattiness.”

 

She smiled at him warmly.

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

Hannah’s bedroom door cracked open and within a few moments, a vision stepped before Chakotay.

 

Her wavy hair was worn down, going far past her shoulders and laying demurely over the black lace covering her upper chest and back.  Matching satin covered her breasts and ended just above her knee.  The tiny waist was cinched in with a black and grey speckled belt that looked like snakeskin.  Hannah and Chakotay shared an inside joke regarding this animal print ever since their adventure in Costa Rica.

 

Tessa exhaled.

 

She knew that her rival for Chakotay’s affections was the spitting image of his lost love.  Hannah Janeway was a true beauty.  There was no competition.

 

But all Uncle Chak could see was the absence of fabric.

 

“That nice, but where’s the rest of it?”

 

“Chakotay!” Tessa exclaimed.

 

“No, I’m very serious.  Hannah, I replicated a floor length, long-sleeved –“

 

“You replicated a nun’s habit, you mean.”

 

“Cover your knees!  Wear those opaque tights I bought you!”

 

“She will do no such thing!” Tessa countered, “Your niece has beautiful stems; you should be proud, Chakotay.”

 

Hannah agreed with the woman’s assessment, but made no outward acknowledgement of her good judgment.  From the moment Tessa had come into their lives, she knew the woman was out to nab her Uncle Chak and that wasn’t going to happen in this, or any, quadrant.

 

Chakotay approached Hannah while scrutinizing the bust line and with both hands, yanked the satin up as far as it would go.  She gasped as the fabric jabbed into her armpits.

 

“Tessa, do you have any fasteners?”

 

“Chakotay!”

 

“Dad!”

 

“Well, do you?”  He turned back to Hannah, stunned, “Wait, what did you just call me?”

 

She was just as surprised as he was.  It just slipped out – as natural as the day she’d been born.

 

“I…called you… ‘Dad,’” Hannah gulped.

 

She watched as her uncle stepped back, his eyes slowly filling with tears and his lower lip beginning to tremble.  Chakotay looked away, cleared his throat and swallowed.

 

“Well you act like one,” his niece nervously filled the tense air between them, “You’re the only father I’ve ever known.”

 

He wanted to kiss her, but her make-up was too perfect.  _She_ was too perfect.

 

The door chimed and the spell was broken.

 

Tessa went to open it and in walked Tristan - tall, dark and handsome.  An eerie mix of Mike and…Chakotay.

 

A light twinkled behind his green eyes.  Tristan expected to see his fun, goofy cousin.  Instead he was greeted by an apparition of loveliness that rivaled any young woman he’d ever seen before.

 

If both youngsters had touched in that moment, they’d have realized that the quickening heartbeats and sharp intake of breath they shared ended their affiliation as ‘cousins.’

 

This was first love.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

The boat the dance was being held on was spacious, but its name was a cruel joke.

 

Hannah stared at the letters painted on the side of the hull while she and Tristan waited in line along the gangplank.

 

 _USS Voyager_.

 

It shouldn’t have surprised her.  After Harry and Chakotay had come home fifteen years ago, everything that moved had been named after the ill-fated starship.  Still, Hannah wished that someone in the universe would give her heart a break.

 

Tristan took her hand and kissed it.

 

“I know what you’re thinking and don’t worry about it.”

 

The way his lips curved made her knees weak, which didn’t bode well when it came to the unfamiliar heels she wore.

 

“Tristan Ayala, are you taking tips from a Betazoid?  How do you know what I’m thinking?”

 

He winked and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

 

“You’re the most beautiful girl at the formal.  And I’m honored to be here with you.”

 

With that, Tristan escorted Hannah to the front of the queue, handed over their tickets and walked them across the threshold.

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

The loud ambient music thumped and rolled from inside the ballroom on the main deck.  Chakotay and Tessa took a break from the cacophony to look out on the lapping waters that hugged the sides of the boat.

 

He hunched over the railing and wondered what was missing in the holodeck simulations they had been running over the last two years.  Voyager’s readings had been precise, but every time the drive kicked in, the hull began its slow, inevitable decline.  Harry had been on his way to becoming a more sociable, normal member of society, but with each passing month that led nowhere, he was reverting back to his manic, frantic ways.

 

Hannah’s mathematical theorems had been crucial to what they’d accomplished so far and Harry had been grateful and humbled by her quick mind and insightful way of thinking outside the box.

 

So close and yet, so far.

 

“I love the salt air.  Don’t you?”  Tessa interrupted his thoughts, “You know, you have permission to have fun tonight, too, Chakotay.  Thinking about work?”

 

“When do I not think about work?”

 

“When you mull over Hannah’s future – which has to do with work.  I’ve noticed that every time I try to talk about _my_ work and how it affects what you’re doing, you balk.”

 

Chakotay smiled.  Tessa Omond’s Multiple Temporal Mechanics was a pie-in-the-sky set of theories, but he didn’t want to tell her that.  As a civilian with little or no Starfleet clearance, she didn’t know that what she based her career and reputation on could be disproved within one year on a starship.

 

Tessa believed that even if Chakotay changed the past, he would still exist in this timeline, but the former commander knew better.  He just couldn’t say as much.  No one outside of Starfleet knew of Q, that omnipotent being who had the ability to toss reality around like a child’s ball.  The God-like creature had long ago shown that any change to the past would alter the future of one, and only one, timeline. 

 

Starfleet allowed theorists and philosophers like Tessa to teach their courses on campus because the higher-ups didn’t want the public to know the truth.  The consequences would be too frightening.  So far Q had used his powers for play and not evil.  Who knew how the arrogant creature would react once his existence was widely known? 

 

“What if I just ended this debate by saying that I have my own beliefs,” he took her hand and kept it warm in his.

 

“I can live with that.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

On the bow end of the boat, Tristan and Hannah had decided to escape the loud, Klingon death rattle-like music made so popular by their generation and lean over the railing just as their adult counterparts were doing.

 

The young man offered his warmed jacket to wear and she accepted it with a grateful nod, letting his body heat drape over her through the material.  He stood with his arm around her waist and she was surprised that it felt comfortable and natural to both of them.  They observed a small speedboat zoom ahead of the massive ship in companionable silence.

 

Tristan wanted badly to kiss Hannah, but he didn’t know if she wanted it.  He respected and loved her more than she’d ever know.  They were good pals, but tonight, he realized he wanted something spectacular with her.  Tristan wished more than ever that he’d been born a Betazoid – at least in the time it took him to get his answer.

 

Hannah was very aware of his close proximity, but her overactive mind also drifted towards the frustrating calculations of the day’s holodeck simulations.  They were missing something crucial; she could feel it in her bones. 

 

The tips of the waves in front of the craft shone silver as the full moon appeared from behind a cloud in the sky.  She admired the pattern the light made and how the ripples created from the speedboat disappeared as the larger sea craft lumbered over them.

 

An idea intruded upon her reverie and she felt as though her brain was pulsating.

 

Small boat.

 

Large boat.

 

Waves.

 

Wake.

 

The Delta Flyer’s wake!  That’s what they hadn’t anticipated in the corrections!  The smaller craft created a wake ahead of Voyager that was insignificant in normal space, but what if this tiny variable made a big difference in the slipstream?

 

She looked up at Tristan’s face and gave him a photon-shattering grin that lit the deck.  In one movement, she took him by both cheeks, clumsily brought his lips to hers and kissed him soundly.

 

So much for reading her mind.

 

When she finally released him, he could barely catch his breath.  Hannah noticed his discombobulation and covered her mouth with her hand.

 

“Oh God!  I’m sorry-“

 

“N-no, no, no, no.  _Don’t_ be.”

 

“It’s just – I’ve discovered how to solve the phase variance!  We have to find Dad!”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

 “Do it.”

 

Hannah stood proud and excited, hands on her hips, her hair pulled up in a haphazard bun.

 

It was as though Kathryn had come back.

 

They were on the holodeck at three a.m., still in full formal attire. 

 

On a replica of Voyager’s bridge, Chakotay sat in his first officer’s chair and his eyes filled for a moment.  He turned around and observed Tristan at the conn, his loosened bow tie hanging around his neck.  Tessa stood at Harry’s old console.

 

“Dad?”

 

Hannah’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.

 

Chakotay snapped to attention.

 

“Tristan, on my mark!  Three, two, one, MARK!”

 

While at full impulse, the slipstream drive kicked in and the bridge began to rumble.  Tristan took his hands off the controls as the view screen coalesced into a diamond-lane tube of spatial distortion.

 

"Power output is steady," he reported.

 

"Shields down to 73 percent," Tessa piped in. "Looking good."

 

On cue, the panel began to beep.

 

"We've got a phase variance--point one…point two…point four…”

 

Hannah barked into the comm.

 

“NOW, Harry!”

 

Tessa’s console beeped, “I’m entering the corrections.”

 

Everyone on both holodecks began a slow prayer.

 

The rumbling began to subside in an infinitesimal way, but then the ride smoothed out distinctively.

 

*How’s it going over there?*  Harry’s tone was crazily hopeful for the first time in a long while.

 

Everyone was in shock.  They’d never made it this far before going belly-up.

 

“Good, Harry!  Keep on course.”

 

*Acknowledged*

 

“Tessa, how are the shields?”

 

“Still at 73 percent.”

 

Suddenly the cloudy spatial distortions of the wave they were riding diminished.  On the view screen was an expanse of normal space.  Tristan powered down the engines.

 

“Tessa?” Chakotay was afraid, elated - hopeful.

 

“My readings show….we’re in the Alpha Quadrant.”

 

Collective whoops rang out over the comm. 

 

Tristan jumped up to embrace a crying Hannah.  He lifted her small form up and off her feet. 

 

A laughing, blubbering Harry rushed through the holodeck doors; both youngsters engulfed him in a group hug.

 

Rising up, Chakotay merely stared out, tears leaking slowly down his cheeks and over his chin. 

 

Tessa came down to stand beside him and looked out over the view screen.

 

“She did it.  She brought Voyager home.”

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

Hannah was tinkering with the holocamera.  It was malfunctioning and since she was the engineer of the household, the responsibility of fixing it fell to her.  She pointed to the tiny object with her microdriver.

 

“Dad, what did you do to it this time?”

 

“I didn’t do anything, love.  I merely turned it on.  I can’t help it if these latest toys don’t seem to like me.”

 

She rolled her eyes.

 

They were in his room. 

 

Chakotay was packing for the deep space mission he and Harry would embark on in the morning to find Voyager, retrieve Seven of Nine’s chronometric node and set the past to rights.  But first, Hannah insisted that he record a message he could send to his younger self – a transmission to explain how important it was that the quantum slipstream drive become public knowledge to prevent any organization from misusing the technology.

 

He stopped looking for his cold weather socks and eyed her reflection in the dresser’s mirror.

 

“We don’t have to do this, you know.”

 

Hannah chuckled as she found the blown out element.

 

“Now you tell me.”

 

He sat down, put the pieces of the holocamera aside and took her hands in his.

 

“If I change the timeline, the life you’ve carved out for yourself here won’t exist – everything, all you’ve accomplished at the Academy, Tristan –“

 

Chakotay winced as she punched him in the arm.

 

“Ow!  I may be scientifically-inept, but I’m not blind.  That young man is over the moon for you.”

 

Hannah smiled, blushing.

 

“He can be again.  You forget that if you change the past, Mommy will come back - and Grandma.  And I’ll be there, just…younger.”

 

“I won’t know what you’ve done for me.”

 

“It’s not important.  Ever since I was little, I’d never known you to be truly happy –“

 

“That’s not true, Hannah-“

 

“No, let me finish.  I think I might love Tristan.  I’ve never felt that way before.  And something tells me that it’s very much the way you loved…Mom…Mommy Kathryn.  You deserve that love.  You’ve earned it.  You’ve kept me alive with your love.  I just hope that the younger you will have the guts and brains to go get her.”

 

Chakotay poked her side with one finger and she laughed.

 

“Hey, you know I’m ticklish!  No fair!” 

 

They leaned into one another until their foreheads met in the middle.  He kissed the tip of her nose.  Her father could be so uncool. 

 

Hannah pushed him away.

 

“Yeah, okay.  Pack, while I fix this thing.”

 

Within minutes, she had replaced the burnt out element, placed the device on the side table, trained it on her father in the wing chair by the window and pressed the record button.

 

After Chakotay had finished his dry, informative message to himself, the door chimed.

 

“That’s the Vietnamese food.”  He stood up and his voice trailed behind as he left the bedroom, “Tell me again why you don’t trust the replicator?”

 

“Because it’s nothing compared to the best home made cuisine this side of the continent!” she called out.

 

When she knew the coast was clear, Hannah got up, closed the door, sat down in the chair, and pressed the record button on the holocamera again.

 

 

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

_You’re the only father I’ve ever known._

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

_Let me save you the way you saved me!_

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

_Thank you, Data._

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

_If ‘B’ exists then ‘A’ no longer does._

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

_Excuse me, aren’t you Hannah Janeway?_

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

_Why don’t you ever talk about Auntie Katie?_

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    * 

 

_I swore the day Hannah was born that she’d never enter Starfleet._

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

_You’re smiling!_

 

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

 

_Up here, it feels like I’m flying._

 

*    *    *    *    *    *

 

_That’s your reason for being, Chakotay._

 

*    *    *    *    *

 

_Loving her was not your fault._

 

*    *    *    *

 

_I saw her again – reacting the very same way I’d expect her to._

 

*    *    *   

 

_I thought hot water was enervating to the male libido._

 

*    *   

 

_Are you with me?_

 

*

 

_Always._

*

 

Inside the slipstream, Seven of Nine frowned deeply.

 

“Captain, I am receiving a transmission."

 

Kathryn gave the former drone a funny look.

 

"You said the comm link was down."

 

“The information is coming through one of my cranial implants.   It contains a new set of phase corrections.”

 

“Does Harry know how to access your Borg systems?”

 

Seven shook her head, “Negative.”

 

Kathryn had a split second decision to make before the hull was torn apart.

“Enter the corrections!”

 

*

 

Inside the Delta Flyer, Harry and Chakotay rode the slipstream until the milky wave distortions began to fade and they found themselves back in normal space.

 

“Chakotay to Voyager.”

 

They were met with silence.

 

“Chakotay to Janeway!  Respond!”

 

A beat more.

 

*Janeway here.  I-I’m sorry, Commander.  I’m just overwhelmed.  We’re in the Alpha Quadrant -*

 

Wild whoops of joy could be heard over the comm and Chakotay turned in his seat to grin at the young, shell-shocked ensign behind him.

 

“Good work, Harry.”

 


	5. Kathryn

*

 

 _She may be the reason I survive_  
The why and wherefore I'm alive  
The one I'll care for through the rough and ready years  
Me, I'll take her laughter and her tears  
And make them all my souvenirs  
For where she goes I've got to be  
The meaning of my life is she  
She

_Oh, she_

 

*

 

Admiral Owen Paris took no chances. 

 

Within an hour of Kathryn hailing Starfleet headquarters, a fleet of Federation warships arrived to escort Voyager through hostile territory. 

 

It was early 2375.  Much had happened while the crew had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant.  The Romulan government had just agreed to join the Federation Alliance and had been instrumental in the defeat of the Dominion at the First Battle of Chin’toka. 

 

Outside her ready room window, Kathryn observed a Klingon bird of prey and shook her head.  Voyager had picked a dangerous time to come home.  There was no chance to celebrate.

 

Her ready room door chimed.

 

“Come.”

 

Seven stepped over the threshold and handed the Captain a PADD.

 

“An encrypted message was sent through my cranial implants along with the new phase corrections.”

 

“Any idea how the corrections were sent?”

 

“No, Captain.”

 

Kathryn scrolled down and her brow furrowed.

 

“It doesn’t tell us who the sender or the recipient is.  Does it correspond to anything you’ve uploaded while onboard Voyager?”

 

“No, Captain.”

 

Janeway tapped her combadge.

 

“Chakotay, Tuvok – report to the ready room.”

 

*Aye, Captain*

 

Within minutes, Kathryn’s first officer and chief of security joined Seven and everyone was brought up to speed.

 

Chakotay extended his hand.

 

“Can I have a look at the PADD, Captain?”

 

She handed it over and he began to scroll down.

 

“47-alpha-612…”

 

“Yes, Commander?”

 

“That’s my serial number.”

 

Kathryn put down her coffee cup and motioned to the PADD.

 

“See if you can open it.”

 

Chakotay keyed in his codes and sure enough, he was granted access.

 

“There are two files.  One of them is in holovid format.”

 

“Any idea who it’s from?”

 

Chakotay scrolled down and shook his head.  Kathryn looked over at the Vulcan.

 

“Tuvok, you have the bridge.  Commander, you can review that in your office and report to me any pertinent findings.  I want to know who sent the phase corrections and how they did it.”

 

“Aye, Captain.”

 

Before they could leave the ready room, the doors swooshed open to reveal Admiral Paris and two of his security detail.

 

“Owen!  No one told me you’d beamed over –“

 

He looked sad; it wasn’t the reunion he’d hoped for.

 

“I’m sorry, Katie,” the admiral offered.  He turned to the man beside her, “Commander Chakotay, you’re under arrest for violating the Treaty of 2370.  You have the right to remain silent…”

 

As Chakotay was read his rights, Federation MPs weaved passed the stunned captain, Seven and Tuvok and slapped the restraints on his wrists.

 

“Owen, you can’t do this –“

 

“The Federation doesn’t want to give anyone on board Voyager the opportunity to transport the Maquis to any neighboring planets.  Believe me, it’s not my decision.  This is the last thing your ship needs, but we have to follow protocol.  With any luck, your Maquis crew men and women will be out in six months pending trial.  We need every able-bodied officer to fight this war with the Dominion.”

 

Kathryn went numb with shock.  Chakotay gazed at her sadly and handed her the PADD with his bound hands.  Not twenty four hours prior, she’d spent the greatest night of her life with the man she had loved for as long as she could remember.  They couldn’t take him.  She wouldn’t let them –

 

“Captain, it’s all right.  We’ll see each other soon.”

 

He wanted to kiss her goodbye, but there were too many eyes upon them.

 

As the MPs led Chakotay out of the ready room to begin his walk of shame, everyone on the bridge stopped what they were doing.

 

Hostile stares were afforded Admiral Paris and his men.  Chakotay was a man who had earned the respect and admiration of every crew member on Voyager - Starfleet and Maquis alike.  After spending five years sharing a collective goal to get home, the blended crew had become its own ruling body.  The establishment had become their enemy.

 

Tom strode up to the commander, but his father blocked him.

 

“Son.”

 

“Dad, you can’t let this happen.”

 

“I have no choice.”

 

Chakotay offered the pilot a reassuring smile.  He knew what was paramount in the young Paris’s mind.

 

“I’ll make sure no one lays a hand on B’Elanna, Tom.  That’s a promise.”

 

*    *    *

 

It was a homecoming no one had been prepared for. 

 

Every Voyager crew member was in the process of being debriefed.  Kathryn had been inundated with red tape, her every log entry dissected by an “independent” Starfleet committee that would determine her fitness to remain ship’s captain.  Voyager herself was being inventoried from top to bottom and B’Elanna’s retrofitted engines were analyzed and scrutinized without the benefit of her presence.

 

The fate of the Maquis was uncertain.  Despite pressure from Admiral Paris, their trial was pushed back, possibly as far as nine months.  From what Kathryn could find out, Chakotay, B’Elanna and the remainder of her Maquis crew were being held in New Zealand with Sveta and the rest of the rebel survivors.  She had little or no influence as to their fates and it was slowly wearing down her resolve.

 

Everyday was spent eroding the soles of her shoes, pounding the pavement at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, attending pointless meetings and enduring interrogation upon interrogation.  Only after a few appointments had been cancelled did Kathryn have a moment to assess her new living space, a pre-war downtown apartment.  Boxes lined the hallways and filled the dining room.  She had yet to unpack. 

 

Her mind swarmed with the various legal strategies she’d been bombarded with over the past few weeks.  It was as though her brain had been rubbed raw.  She missed Chakotay desperately.  The reports she got from Tom, who had moved to New Zealand so that he could keep them all updated, told her that the Maquis were not being abused by the system - unless the months of waiting could be considered part of that equation.

 

Kathryn’s brain needed a rest and she figured that unpacking the mountain of boxes in her dining room would be a mindless enough activity to shut it off, if only for a moment.  On tip toe, she grasped the uppermost container, but as she lowered it, she ended up slipping on the rug.  The box emptied as it came crashing down.

 

A data PADD hit the floor and the impact turned the device on.

 

It was the encrypted message Chakotay had handed to her upon his arrest.  Kathryn had forgotten all about it in the confusion and anger she’d felt.  Starfleet had wasted no time occupying Voyager with its own officers.  Readying the ship for its arrival on Earth had been the primary goal that dictated her schedule.

 

She picked up the PADD, pulled out her computer and uploaded the files.

 

Kathryn selected the holovid message, opened it and felt her heart drop in her chest.

 

It was him.

 

He was dressed strangely and he sat in unfamiliar surroundings.  The items around him looked like they were part of an Earth-dweller’s residence, not belonging on a star ship.  Streaks of grey ran through his closely-cropped hair and pronounced crow’s feet had formed at the corners of his drooping eyes.  Wrinkles lined his mouth and his forehead –

 

“Hello, Chakotay.   If you receive this message, it means that we’ve brought you and Voyager home.  I am you, but from a different timeline.  A timeline when you and Harry were the only survivors.”

 

He paused for a moment as his voice caught.

 

Kathryn sat shocked, riveted.

 

She listened as he summarized the politics of a future she had yet to see and - as she heard more – hoped to never experience.  This man urged his younger self to make sure the quantum slipstream technology didn’t fall into the wrong hands, but what struck Kathryn most was that the transmission could be used as leverage to set Chakotay and the Maquis free.  If Owen knew that the man’s future self was instrumental in getting them home, how could the Federation deny the goodness in him?

 

The screen blacked out following his message.  Kathryn almost closed the file when the image of an empty chair blinked back on.

 

Wearing a Starfleet Academy sweatshirt, a teenage girl with long, auburn hair pulled up in a ponytail walked from the camera to sit in the wing chair.  She was beautiful and looked familiar –

 

“Hi, Daddy.”

 

Kathryn gasped, but then her expression showed confusion.  This young lady - with her fair complexion and blue eyes - bore no resemblance to her first officer.

 

“No, you didn’t have a baby you didn’t know about!  I’m Phoebe’s daughter, Hannah.  I was born two years before you came home and in the beginning, I called you ‘Uncle Chak,’ but now that I think about it, you were more like a daddy.  So hi, Daddy.”

 

Kathryn brought a hand up to cover her mouth.  _Phoebe_.  Phoebe’s daughter.  Starfleet had sequestered Voyager from its families.  The full force of missing her sister and her family flooded her being and Kathryn’s eyes filled with tears.

 

“I don’t have much time.  I stole your wallet so you couldn’t pay the delivery guy.  If your future self knew I’d made this message, you’d erase it.  But Temporal Prime Directive my _ass_.  I’ve downloaded your personal logs from the past fifteen years with this transmission – in case I run out of time – but I’ll leave you with this very important message.

 

Daddy, you deserve to be happy.  You’ve spent too many years mourning her death, but if you get this, that means she’s alive!  So go get her and don’t let anyone stop you!  Yours is a love of a lifetime – beyond the measure of a lifetime.  I know that now.  If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have come up with the phase corrections in the first place!  For as long as I can remember, I’ve had numbers and theorems bouncing around in my head.  Just like she did –“

 

Through her tears, Kathryn strained to understand what this beautiful child was saying –

 

“So please, for me, right this moment, drop everything, go out and find Mommy Kathryn and make her yours.  I love you.  So, so much.  And even though I never got to know her, I love her, too.”

 

Hannah kissed her fingers and placed them on the lens.

 

The screen went dark.

 

For the first time in five years, Kathryn Janeway let go of duty and protocol and unleashed the full measure of her pain, frustration, and heartache in a noisy, messy cry.

 

Dear God, she had a daughter.

 

Kathryn suddenly remembered the eggs she’d harvested for Phoebe.  In the shock that came with viewing the holovid, she’d forgotten this crucial fact.  Only when the beautiful girl opened her mouth and called her “Mommy Kathryn” did the full weight of Hannah’s identity hit her.

 

With her heart beat fighting the constraints of her chest, Kathryn played back the transmission, froze the screen on the girl’s smiling face and transferred the image to a printer.  She was afraid that all of this had been a dream.  Kathryn needed something tangible to hold on to and look at while she delved into the older Chakotay’s personal logs.

 

With the holoimage of Hannah in her left hand, Kathryn scrolled through endless entries as tears dripped like rain in a continuous, never-ending stream down her face.

 

*    *    *

 

Entering a Starfleet storage facility dressed in a yellow maintenance uniform, his hair tucked under a cap, Harry Kim kept his head down low as he passed crewmen on the third deck.

 

Using an access PADD he’d swiped from an unsuspecting guard, he keyed in the proper sequence of numbers and letters to gain access to a cargo bay filled with boxes.  He pulled out the tricorder from his back pocket and did a sweep of the room.

 

The device was programmed to detect benamite residue, the primary fuel component of the quantum slipstream drive.

 

The signal grew strongest when pointed to a box in the far right corner of the bay.  He opened the container and sure enough, the device was inside.

 

He tapped the combadge hidden underneath his uniform.

 

“Kim to Tuvok,” Harry whispered.

 

*Tuvok here*

 

“I’ve dropped the force field around loading zone 759,” he placed a transporter enhancer on the slipstream drive, “Lock onto these coordinates and beam out.”

 

The device disappeared in a shower of light.

 

*We have it, ensign*

 

“Good, I’m ready to go.”

 

Harry shimmered out of the cargo bay. 

 

*    *    *

 

Owen Paris was in a staff meeting when a tornado of red opened the conference room door, barged in past a gaggle of Starfleet brass and stopped just centimeters in front of him.

 

He looked up to see Kathryn’s steely blue eyes trained on him like a target.  She was dressed in a tailored red pantsuit.

 

“Owen, we need to talk.  I have something in my possession that will set the Maquis free.”

 

*    *    *

 

Admiral Paris finished reading selected entries of the future Chakotay’s log.  He was speechless.

 

Kathryn paced in front of the wall-to-wall windows of Owen’s office and grew impatient.

 

“If you don’t believe it, I have voice verification –“

 

“Oh no, I believe it.  This man uncovered ten years worth of Starfleet intelligence that he could not possibly have had access to.  I believe him.”

 

Kathryn turned around and placed her palms on his desk.

 

“Is it enough to free him?”

 

Owen sighed and shook his head.

 

“This information will have to be kept from the public for obvious reasons.  And unfortunately, the Maquis have already been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.”

 

“So I gave you that for nothing.”

 

“Katie, I’ll do what I can, but Starfleet is more concerned with the Dominion than your friends.  Protocol –“

 

“ _Fuck_ protocol, Owen!  You’ve got the finest men and women I’ve ever served with in prison and you’re quoting me protocol?  One of them happened to save countless lives by changing the fabric of time and giving this sorry state of the universe another chance!”

 

She dropped into the chair in front of him and crossed her legs.

 

“All right, Owen.  You’ve given me no choice.  You will find a way to set the Maquis free or I will dismantle the quantum slipstream drive and scatter its parts all over the galaxy.” 

 

Owen’s eyes grew wide.  He reached for his combadge.

 

“Go ahead.  Have the storage facility scoured from top to bottom.  It’s not there.  You see, I _know_ you need that technology.  I saw your engineers drool over it when they inspected my ship.  And after reading Chakotay’s logs, I know what you plan to do with it.  Not only will I dismantle your baby, I’ll have you know I’ve already arranged for _The Sentinel_ to receive an anonymous transmission containing the details of the slipstream technology.  Do you really want the Dominion to know what you’re planning before you even get your hands on the device?  Or would you like to do what’s right for Voyager and her crew by letting my family go?”

 

Silence.

 

Owen’s frown slowly transformed into a smile.  He erupted in an uncontrollable fit of rumbling laughter.

 

Kathryn was nonplussed.

 

“What’s so funny?”

 

He took a deep breath and blew it out.

 

“You!  Oh, Katie, Katie, Katie.  I knew you’d find a way!”

 

*    *    *

 

As Chakotay piloted their shuttle, Kathryn couldn’t keep her eyes off of him.

 

Today marked a day of freedom – for _all_ the Maquis.

 

Harry and Tuvok’s heist had been instrumental in providing the means to an end.  Starfleet was forced to publicly acknowledge the technology they’d obtained from Voyager.  The public relations department had sent out press releases that reported the bravery and loyalty of the combined crews and how instrumental they were in helping develop new ways of fighting the Dominion War.

 

On Chakotay’s last day in prison, Kathryn showed up - as did Tom and other Maquis family members.  Each former rebel was reunited with loved ones and spirited farewells were exchanged, promising more get-togethers in the near future.

 

Kathryn and Chakotay’s shuttle flew over a spectacular view of the ocean, but she hardly noticed.  Three months of detention had whittled down Chakotay’s body fat, giving a sinewy edge to his dark good looks.

 

He looked over at her and was delighted to catch her staring at him.

 

“If we’re late for your lunch reservations, you have only yourself to blame.  It’s your fault we got lost.”

 

“No, it’s _your_ fault.  I was so busy kissing you that I mixed up the coordinates.”

 

He grinned.  To distract and confuse Kathryn Janeway – now _that_ was quite a feat.

 

“Where are we going again?”

 

“Sydney.  I’ve found a beautiful beach house to rent for the next week or so.”

 

“Celebrating any special occasion?”

 

“How about ‘starting our life together’?”

 

Spirits, he loved her.

 

“Sounds good to me.”

 

*    *    *

 

They missed lunch.

 

They skipped dinner.

 

Lit by the full moon and enveloped in the sounds of the waves breaking over the surf, Kathryn made love to Chakotay as if she were trying to make up for fifteen years of loneliness and longing.

 

Every time she opened her eyes, Kathryn saw the streaks of grey in his hair, felt the crinkles at the corner of his eyes, sensed the faded light behind orbs that had witnessed too much.  Too much to bear in a lifetime.

 

They held each other in a sitting position and she let him fill her with each successive thrust.  Every nerve opened up in one climactic moment and the tears began to fall as she came.

 

Chakotay felt the wetness on his chest as she collapsed into him in the dark.

 

“Kathryn?”

 

She shook her head and looked up at his face.  Her fingers traced the outline of his jaw, his cheekbones, the emerging set of crow’s feet.  His hair was black.  Black.  Kathryn was so grateful.  Her heart filled with love for the man she owed her life to but would never meet.

 

“Oh, Chakotay,” she breathed, “There’s so much for you to know.  But I’m tired, so tired.  Let’s sleep now and we can talk in the morning.”

 

*    *    *

 

He woke at dawn, his form curved over hers to one side.  Rosy rays of light made her skin glow with warmth and Chakotay was tempted to caress her every curve and luxuriate in her softness.  She looked peaceful for the first time in what felt like forever. 

 

The last time he’d seen her body and face so beautifully slack was their first night together – the night before they’d arrived in the Alpha Quadrant.  Kathryn had never looked lovelier than in sleep.  She’d spent too many insomnia-ridden nights over a computer or data PADDs, pondering how to get Voyager home and keep her crew intact at the same time.  His happiness was complete in a way that couldn’t be described.

 

Not wanting to wake her, Chakotay rose and strapped on the robe over his form.  He decided to take the computer out to the deck with a cup of tea and check up on news reports while watching the sun rise.  As he logged on, he noticed a file marked “47-alpha-612.”  He remembered the PADD he’d left behind after being arrested and decided to open the file.

 

Chakotay missed the beauty of the sunrise before him as he became engrossed in what he saw and read.  Portions of his other self’s logs made him both laugh with happiness and cry with the brutality of loneliness.  Kathryn had only told him bits and pieces of what she’d found that helped free him from prison; he had no idea the extent of what she’d been put through upon reading such material.

 

And _Hannah_.

 

The beautiful spitting-image of Kathryn.  Her spunk, her passion, her stubbornness, her clever wit and charm – all of it was documented in the man’s logs.  She came alive on the PADD, the only place she could exist.

 

Chakotay wiped the tears from his eyes with the robe’s sleeve and looked up.  An hour or more had passed.  He turned around and stared at Kathryn’s sleeping form.

 

To have lost her in such a way - how could he have gone on living?  How he must have suffered without her.  Chakotay’s heart burst with the need to protect her in that moment, as if his reality could be tampered with again.

 

He walked inside and unwrapped the robe from his body, letting it hit the floor.  He slid up the sheets until he spooned her from behind and began kissing her neck and shoulders, lightly nipping her awake.

 

Kathryn turned to face him, her eyes half-open, her smile a half-smirk.  When she saw that his eyes were red and his lashes were still wet to the touch, her eyes went wide.  She jerked her head up and saw the computer open to a frozen image of Hannah through the porch window.  She offered him a sad smile and then kissed him deeply.

 

Chakotay shuddered into her touch and wrapped himself around her.  The kisses became more intense, filled with a desperate attempt to shut out the world and freeze time into a moment that only existed for them.

 

He made love to her as though he’d lost her for all time.

 

*    *    *

 

Phoebe looked out the window, more nervous than she’d ever been in her life.

 

“You’re going to give yourself whiplash if you keep that up,” Gretchen sing-songed, “They’ll get here when they get here.  There’s no need to get in a tizzy in the meantime.”

 

“Mom, I haven’t told her about Hannah. What do you think she’ll say?”

 

Gretchen took the caramel brownies out of the oven and set them on the rack to cool.

 

“She’ll say ‘congratulations,’ of course.  Why?  What do you think she’ll say?”

 

“Well, I don’t know.  I mean, Hannah’s hers, too –“

 

“Hannah is _yours_.  When Katie gave her eggs to you, they became _yours_ , so stop fretting.  That little bundle of joy will have one more person to rely on in this world, maybe two, judging from what I read about that handsome former Maquis.  We should all be so lucky.”

 

Phoebe squinted.  She could see a shuttle coming in from afar.

 

“Mom!  They’re here!”

 

*    *    *

 

Chakotay landed the shuttle in the back.  Kathryn set foot on Indiana soil for the first time in five years and breathed in the fresh air.

 

Together, they made their way to the tree Kathryn had climbed when she was a child.  The couple looked at one another, knowing that their thoughts were in sync.  Kathryn closed her eyes and tried to remember what the tree ship would have looked like.

 

“Katie!!”

 

Phoebe rushed out of the house and nearly knocked her sister over with the force of her hug.  Both had tears in their eyes. 

 

When she looked up and saw Gretchen, she let Phoebe go.

 

Kathryn Janeway quickly covered the space between herself and her mother, smiling broadly the whole time.

 

A tiny little girl – no more than two years of age – was in her grandmother’s arms.  Strawberry blonde rings covered her head.  She wore a red and white dress, generously accented with polka-dots, and a matching bow in her hair.  Her eyes were cerulean blue.

 

The tot was staring at her and Kathryn held out her hands.

 

When Gretchen deposited the little girl in her long-lost daughter’s arms, she swore she heard the strangest, most beautiful thing.

 

“Hello, Hannah.  Thank you for bringing me home.”

 

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to corimariee and CF for the betas. End of chapter banner is by corimariee.


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